Hungarian regulator hits Telekom with net neutrality ruling

Hungary’s National Media & Infocommunications Authority (NMHH) has invoked the EU net neutrality framework rules to order the country’s largest fixed and mobile operator Magyar Telekom to cease ‘zero rating’ selected over-the-top (OTT) internet video services for its mobile users (i.e. giving subscribers access to the services without registering any data volume usage). Telekom’s ‘Unlimited TV & Film’ option allows 24-hour unlimited access to the mobile/OTT ‘TV Go’ and ‘HBO Go’ services with no data traffic being deducted from the user’s package allowance (nor any data usage threshold triggering a slowdown in speed). The NMHH decided that Telekom ‘discriminated’ against competing OTT internet-based video services in violation of the EU net neutrality rules, which it said were applicable because the service was delivered over the public internet, rather than being a managed video service.