Ofcom investigates net neutrality practices

Ofcom investigates net neutrality practices

Ofcom has opened an investigation into the traffic management practices of both Vodafone and Three using for the first time powers granted by the EU Open Internet Access Regulation 2015, which requires Ofcom to monitor and ensure compliance of the net neutrality rules.


The investigation follows an assessment of the evidence gathered from Ofcom’s own-initiative enforcement programme. Ofcom had previously stated that it had found no major concerns for the Open Internet but had flagged that traffic management in particular was an area where they would be proactively gathering more information. It appears that the resulting investigation follows that information gathering.

For Three, Ofcom is looking into the practices of restricting tethering, any restrictions on devices on which a SIM might be used, and the traffic management practice of ‘throttling’ certain categories of traffic – including whilst roaming.

Vodafone comes under scrutiny regarding traffic management practices of the Vodafone Passes such as throttling particular categories of traffic and transparency issues where zero rating might not be universally applied to certain zero rated applications.

Ofcom is continuing to gather information from other fixed and mobile service operators under their enforcement programme.

An update and any other relevant work is expected to be published in June 2018.