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The open Internet is an essential platform for growth and benefits for all, including telecom operators: it has to be safeguarded.

We have said it for a long time: preserving the open Internet and net neutrality is crucial for everyone. A new report confirms this passionate belief of ours, in research by Plum Consulting commissioned by the BBC, Blinkbox, the UK’s Channel 4, Skype and Yahoo!.

Not only that, the research demonstrates that a few myths about net neutrality are false:

• Rather than worrying, the increasing demand for Internet content is good as it supports revenue growth and broadband investment
• Telecom providers’ costs are not ballooning because of data growth
• Content and application providers do not cause traffic
• Content and application providers invest considerably in distribution infrastructure and technologies and do not ‘free ride’ on networks
• Investment in next generation broadband would not necessarily increase, and may even decrease, if content and application providers were required to pay for users to enjoy their apps and services.

Without an open Internet – which enables content providers to invest in developing innovative apps and services, that will fuel growth in uptake of high-speed broadband – telecoms companies would experience a rapid decline in revenues. In fact, the demand for broadband connectivity stimulated by Internet content and application providers drove fixed and mobile broadband revenues for telecom operators of approximately €155 billion a year in Europe.

The report concludes that the open Internet is the most efficient model in delivering continued benefits for consumers and the economy, including telecoms operators. It recommends that additional safeguards are put in place to maintain a high quality open Internet, which sustains innovation and drives growth.

With this report, we hope that all parties involved in the ‘net neutrality’ debate will come to realise that the Internet value chain is a symbiotic ecosystem – we are complementary – and that the open Internet is a platform that benefits all of us, and which should be safeguarded.

Download the report here:
Plum_October2011_The_open_internet_-_a_platform_for_growth.pdf