Says it violates the Net Neutrality Act.
16 June 2022, 14:50
2 min reading time
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Both Telia and Telenor offer the service they call “Music Freedom”, which in practice allows you to stream music on your mobile without using any of the subscription’s data quota.
Now – five years later – the EU has ruled that this type of “zero assessment” is illegal.
Nkom therefore asks both Telenor and Telia to terminate the marketing of the Music Freedom service by the end of August 2022, and to terminate affected end-user agreements by the end of the year.
The EU has not taken a direct position on Telenor and Telia’s Music Freedom services, but on a similar service at Vodaphone in Germany. They were convicted of violating net neutrality, which led to the EU body BEREC updating its guidelines on net neutrality.
And these guidelines also follow Norway:
– Nkom has assessed the zero-rating service “Music Freedom” based on the court’s statements and BEREC’s revision of the guidelines. Our conclusion is that “Music Freedom” is covered by the principled assessments from the European Court of Justice and the revised guidelines, and therefore must be phased out of the Norwegian market, writes Nkom.
In another statement The online newspaper says Telenor’s communications manager Anders Krokan that they will comply with the new rules:
– We introduced Telenor Music Freedom in 2017, and the offer has been very well received by our customers. Because we have opened up for participation for all subscription services for music streaming, we believe that this has not come into conflict with the principle of net neutrality. Music Freedom is a music offer designed for the principle of net neutrality, something Nkom has supported us in, Krokan said to The online newspaper.
The Net Neutrality Act shall ensure that services are treated equally by network providers for competition reasons. Even though Telenor and Telia say that all music is free to stream, it still requires that the service has an agreement with them, so that the data is registered correctly.
Telenor Music Freedom allows you to listen to music from Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, Deezer, Beat, AudioMac and SoundCloud, for example. Telia has the same list, but not SoundCloud. None of them have Amazon Music.
When Telenor launched Yng in 2017, which was the first mobile subscription in Norway to include “Music Freedom”, the then Nkom CEO Torstein Olsen told Tek.no that it was great that customers got more data and more services included in the subscription. However, he was skeptical that operators should decide what the included data will be used for.
– We see similar offers throughout Europe at the moment, with operators coming up with offers that are either within or completely within the limits of the net neutrality rules. That is why it is important for us to work closely with our colleagues throughout Europe to ensure harmonization of regulations. It is important that something is not legal in one country and forbidden in another country, Olsen said that time.
16 June 2022, 14:50
