In cooperation with the Danish ICT sector, NITA has organized a conference under the heading “Network Neutrality – Implications for Innovation and Business Online”.

The full day conference was held in Copenhagen on September 30, 2008. Invited participants were stakeholders from all European countries and the US.

The discussion about Network Neutrality is concerned with possible issues that may arise as a result of prioritising data traffic. Basically, the network has so far been regarded as neutral, treating different services (e.g. website requests, VoIP, VPN, peer-to-peer etc.) and providers hereof equally.

In consequence of the increasing volume of traffic on the network limited capacity, revenue sharing and the need to secure a high level of quality of services for their customers are some of the reasons why network operators consider allocating priorities to traffic on the network (on short term) while on the long term investing in larger capacity.

Innovation and investments online have provided an increasing number of potential applications on the Internet. Already now, the players on the market are taking advantage of new possibilities to deliver access and content to the end-users, who will demand content at any time and everywhere. To make the enterprises undertake the necessary investments, a certain predictability of getting a return on the investments is needed. But how should the condition for predictability and thus the basis to stimulate investment an innovation be provided?

Advocates of Network Neutrality argue that there should be no restrictions on the access to services and content on the network and that Internet access is basically an infrastructural necessary asset offering access to information, citizen services and entertainment. The purpose of this Conference was to discuss some of these issues and provide input for a forward looking way to handle some of these problems in the years to come.

PROGRAMME:

Click here to see the conference programme

BIOGRAPHIES:

Click here for the biographies on the conference speakers

VIDEO AND PRESENTATIONS:

Click here to see the presentations, video and podcasts from the conference

Click here for EU-Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Viviane Redings speech at the Conference

SUMMARY:

English

Danish

For questions on the conference, please send an email to our main e-mail address .
For direct contact, please contact Mr. Henrik Aagaard Johanson (pho. + 45 35 45 02 96 ), Ms. Christina Toft Christensen (pho. + 45 35 45 03 31 )