Final report – Study
Zero-rating – the practice of excluding some traffic from overall data caps – has received a considerable amount of attention in the debate about net neutrality. Applying different charges depending on the type of traffic may be considered as incompatible with the principle of treating all data the same, and therefore with the net neutrality principle. However, others have pointed out the potential benefits associated with zero-rating, such as promoting broadband access and access to services through lowering costs and enabling product and price differentiation. European net neutrality rules permit zero-rating (under certain conditions), and data plans including zero-rated offers are available in most Member States, mostly in the mobile market. In this report, we present the results of research undertaken on current and historic zero-rated offers in Europe, including a survey of national regulatory and competition authorities.
Corporate author(s): Aetha , Directorate-General for Competition (European Commission) , DotEcon Ltd , Oswell Vahida.
Themes: Information technology and telecommunications, Competition policy
Font: Publications Office of the European Union (originally published on 8 September 2017)
Zero Rating 