Virgin Media O2 Calls on Ofcom to Weaken UK Net Neutrality Rules for Mobile
Broadband and mobile giant Virgin Media and O2 (VMO2) has today attempted to reignite the Net Neutrality debate, again, by calling on Ofcom to soften their guidelines in order to “unlock innovation and new mobile network investment“. The rules were originally established to prevent unfair blocking or slowing of access to legal websites and other internet services by comms providers.
Just to recap. The original rules meant that service providers couldn’t easily impose excessive restrictions against internet traffic and should treat almost all of it equally (i.e. they should avoid favouring specific services, such as by blocking or slowing access to rival services). But, there were some exceptions, such as when providers needed to impose general traffic management, parental controls, court ordered blocks or certain security measures (e.g. anti-virus/spam filtering) etc.
The rules, which are widely supported by online content providers – the very services that make the internet worth visiting in the first place, have generally done a reasonable job of protecting consumers from bad practices by commercial providers.
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However, Ofcom did agree to further soften their Net Neutrality guidelines in 2023 (here), such as by clarify some prior conflicts around zero rated data, allowing providers to offer premium quality retail packages (e.g. those with tweaks to deliver lower latency) and support for specialised services so that providers could deliver specific content and applications that need to be optimised (e.g. a limited allowance for network slicing on 5G mobile).
Round Three of the Net Neutrality Battle
Every time this topic comes up there’s an inevitable rehashing of old arguments, with major broadband and mobile operators (e.g. BT, Virgin Media etc.) typically opting to talk in vague language to avoid having to spell out the more controversial changes that they’d really like to make.
The same is largely true of VMO2’s latest injection into the debate, which describes the net neutrality rules as being “out-dated” and complains of how they’re “now preventing operators from launching new services and stymieing innovation“. All of this is then centred around a new report, that they commissioned, from Stephen Howard of Communications Chambers.
The report claims that alongside “limiting innovative new services“, consumers might also experience “worse quality services in future“. For example, it highlights how the current rules prevent operators from fully realising the benefits of Agentic AI, such as by hindering their ability to “effectively prioritise traffic when networks are congested“. The report then identifies a series of real-world use cases that reforming net-neutrality rules might “unlock“.
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Example Use Cases for Softer Net Neutrality Rules
➤ Apps offering essential services for SMEs: which could include an enhanced payment service to support small businesses operating in busy areas like festivals or food markets. This would ensure they can rapidly and reliably process payments even at times of network congestion.
➤ Providing reliability and performance in the moments that matter: allowing operators to use customer insights or customer preferences to prioritise time-sensitive apps such as map based navigation, requests for taxis outside of major venues or connecting to an electric car charging station in the depths of a multi-storey car park.
➤ Allow more effective service prioritisation: for example, enabling a user to readily prioritise an important video call over other apps using their connection.
The first example is one that should technically already be allowed via network slicing in 5G environments and indeed we have seen these being deployed before, often with Ofcom not appearing to throw up any particular roadblocks. But in the comment below VMO2 appears to be talking about prioritising specific payment apps, rather than general payment processing, which might be a bit more contentious.
The next two points seem a bit more wishy washy, as we’re not really sure if either of those are problems that strictly need softer Net Neutrality to resolve. Laying on appropriate network capacity or deploying small cells is usually a good fix and video calls aren’t as intensive for today’s connections as they once were. We’ve not personally had any problems with mobile video calls, maps or taxi apps etc.
Lutz Schüler, CEO of Virgin Media O2, said:
“Outdated net neutrality rules limit innovation and hold back the full benefits of the infrastructure we’re building. We’re not able to help customers by prioritising taxi and map apps when travelling home at night and can’t prioritise payment apps for sole traders in crowded markets. No one is winning.
New technologies like Agentic AI will improve the online experience and we’re investing £700m this year in our mobile network to boost connectivity across the UK, but with network traffic growing relentlessly we won’t get the most out of it without much-needed reform.
To unleash private sector investment, improve consumer and business services, and deliver the UK’s 5G ambition, government should use its mobile market review to remove these antiquated roadblocks to innovation so we can bring about better connectivity and services for all.”
The report itself appears to go a bit further by calling for a seemingly complete “repeal of the net neutrality rules“, which would of course have commercial benefits for network operators, albeit with the flip side being the potentially negative impact upon consumer protections. Some content providers might also face additional charges for distributing content that they’ve already paid to send over the internet.
Depending on the assumptions made, the report suggests that such a repeal might deliver incremental revenues in a range of between £174m and £871m per annum. Network efficiency gains could amount to a further (non-recurring) £384m. The combination of additional mobile capex and improved efficiency in the utilisation of existing infrastructure would together be worth around £142-557m a year – equivalent to 8-31% of current investment levels.
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“Note that these estimates relate purely to the mobile subsector and could conceivably be substantially higher with the inclusion of fixed-line [broadband] activities,” said the report. The financial incentive is clear, at least for network operators. But in fairness, VMO2 may have a point around some areas, so while we don’t support the existing rules being repealed, there may be scope for further tweaks to support greater flexibility in certain specific areas, albeit without giving big network providers carte blanche to do whatever they like.
The reason we’re seeing this now is because of the Government’s ongoing Mobile Market Review (summary), which aims to ensure that existing mobile network policy and regulatory frameworks are updated to support investment, innovation, competition and consumers.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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This lot are all about leeching as much money as possible. “New Services” are basically accountant speak for new tiers of pricing model designed to leech money every possible way a company can out of customers.
The CMA should look at this request in terms of decision for Netomnia, as it wants to rampup prices by charging premiums for stuff that should just exist within a well designed network. Basically eventually, anyone not opting for a ton of plugin additonal monthly bolt-ons will be subject to “best endevours” internet.
Fleecing customers for £82+ for Gigabit, outside of promotional pircing offers, isn’t enough it seems for fixed lines and for mobile, its because their cells are so saturated and they don;t want to pay to resolve it unless they charge customers again and again for it.
“enabling a user to readily prioritise an important video call over other apps using their connection” – Surely this is more effectively done by the *user’s* router, or other equipment on their local network. There’s no need to do anything about this at the WAN level.
For the record I don’t agree with VMO2 here at all, but I think this is actually a valid problem. The user’s home network might be able to manage prioritisation to prevent their video call getting throttled by a game download but once it hits their ISP’s gateway, said ISP is bound by the rules and can’t stop other users from shoving more down the pipes at the same time.
@Kushnan – I don’t understand how this would be a valid problem. If there’s an instance where a user is saturating the ISP’s capacity to the detriment of others, current rules allow the ISP to use traffic management policies allowing the ISP to throttle the heavy user to a level that decongests their network. Virgin Media historically used traffic management during peak times to manage their network, but this was unpopular and they eventually removed such policies (it helped that competitors didn’t use traffic management either).
If an ISP’s core network is underperforming, they do always have the option to upgrade their core networking infrastructure and network peering. I mean, wasn’t it only last week that Virgin Media and/or Openreach were celebrating their network capacity with regards to World Cup video streaming (for both peak network traffic and network quality)? It does seem, unfortunately, that some ISPs have to be forced to upgrade their networking infrastructure, and abandoning net neutrality would just make this worse; ISPs could deprioritise/block traffic at will and subsequently charge more for the same. A semi-related issue, I find it vexing how Vodafone’s current advertisements boast of their multi-billion network investment when the small print explains this is due, in part, to their CMA undertaking.
Further, I don’t really see what prevents an ISP launching a network prioritised service level for consumers. If a user needs reliable video calling capabilities, then just allow for them to purchase a network prioritised service, such as what EE allow for on their full works plans when it comes to 5G/SA.
This has got nothing to do with fixed broadband which has more than enough capacity now for almost infinite growth, this is about mobile where capacity is limited by the radio spectrum.
This is about laying the ground in mobile for chargeable network slicing, where different services pay the mobile operator a premium to have a better service level for their users. Such as payment terminals, the uber app, business conference calling etc.
But I cant see it becoming a huge business for the mobile operators even if they do convince OFCOM to relax net neutrality.
Ultimately most traffic and use cases are carried over WiFi. Mobile is important for the certain outdoor use cases, but are those use cases really that big and plentiful to justify paying an huge premium to prioritise their traffic in locations where there is network congestion? Besides I think most people would argue that the networks have an obligation to densify their networks in these locations to address the congestion rather than splitting traffic up and charging premiums for privatisation of certain traffic from some apps over others.
That’s how I understand the above article.
I think that’s not well worded. The report suggests users should be able to choose which apps get priority access to the mobile network because the user knows what’s important to them. (As opposed to, or in addition to, the network operator choosing what gets priority.) I can’t see any detail on how this would actually work but presumably the operators would want to charge for it!
In the end I think the entire report is a load of fluff – what they really want to do is charge senders for bandwidth their customers use (e.g. Netflix pays the ISP for the bandwidth their customers use streaming). Similar to what happens in South Korea, which, weirdly, the report does actually reference. Ofcom should tell them to take a running jump.
VMO2 need to understand how they’re perceived in the public eye in many places, this just enforces my view about where virgin media and O2 are headed… and it’s not in a good direction IMO.
“VMO2 need to understand how they’re perceived”. Do you think that they don’t or that they care?
The fairest method of prioritising traffic (and one which would be allowed under the current rules) is slowing down the heavier users. You don’t need to prioritise Maps over someone streaming 4K, just prioritise the traffic of the lightest users. The rest will sort itself out.
A very narrow and simplistic view.
User 1 pays £50pcm for 1Gig connection and uses 500GB per month
User 2 pays £20pcm for 100Mb connection and uses 250GB per month
Your method prioritises user 2 if those connections were in contention. Why? User 1 pays more for a faster service and uses proportionally less data than user 2, but not less data in absolute terms. User 1 is a greater burden on the network from a data total but is more bursty and provides more profit and margin for network investment.
If I wrote here what exactly I thought while reading this my comment definitely wouldn’t be approved.
> net neutrality rules limit innovation and hold back the full benefits of the infrastructure we’re building
This is a blatant lie. Net neutrality is helping innovation, if I came out with a new, innovative service, it would be immediately useful thanks to the net neutrality rules.
I also don’t see how net neutrality limits using the full benefits of a network infrastructure. The main benefit of it is I can send whatever data I want without any gatekeepers.
Let’s cut the BS.
The heaviest type if traffic is video.
Networks would love to charge a premium to customers who want a smooth high quality video experience but quite rightly cannot be because of Net Neutrality rules.
The idea that the primary benefit would be prioritising traffic to the benefit of customers is nonsense. It’s all about networks wanting to cap use unless you pay extra, but couching it in terms of customer benefit.
spot on.
video would still be allowed, but forced to stream SD/HD, or only in a certain window and you would have to pay some sort of ‘bolt-on’ to allow high quality streaming..
this was sort of ‘tested’ during covid, where some ISP’s (I think it was actually virgin) capped youtube I think to SD only..
then we have the deprioritisation, a dyanamic speed idea, which talktalk are flirting with. whereby the speed ramps up as demand needs it but imagine during peak hours… “why is my internet only 10mb”… “well you need to be a VIP customer to have gigabit at peak times…which is £20 a month” (this is just a random figure but I can see likes of VM charging as much)
as you and others have said, it’s all about trying to profit from a customer in lots of different ways.
I thought it was competition that drove innovation & investment, not ensh—-fying the product. Just the usual nonsense we’ve come to expect from this company.