Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 laying down measures concerning open internet access and retail charges for regulated intra-EU communications and amending Directive 2002/22/EC and Regulation (EU) No 531/2012 (Text with EEA relevance)Text with EEA relevance

• Celex Number: 02015R2120-20201221
• Coming into Force: 21 December 2020
• ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2015/2120/2020-12-21
• Published date: 21 December 2020
• Date: 21 December 2020

02015R2120 — EN — 21.12.2020 — 002.001

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This text is meant purely as a documentation tool and has no legal effect. The Union's institutions do not assume any liability for its contents. The authentic versions of the relevant acts, including their preambles, are those published in the Official Journal of the European Union and available in EUR-Lex. Those official texts are directly accessible through the links embedded in this document

►B ►M1 REGULATION (EU) 2015/2120 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 25 November 2015 laying down measures concerning open internet access and retail charges for regulated intra-EU communications and amending Directive 2002/22/EC and Regulation (EU) No 531/2012 ◄ (Text with EEA relevance) (OJ L 310 26.11.2015, p. 1)

Amended by:

		Official Journal
		No	page	date
►M1	REGULATION (EU) 2018/1971 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 11 December 2018	L 321	1	17.12.2018
►M2	DIRECTIVE (EU) 2018/1972 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL Text with EEA relevance of 11 December 2018	L 321	36	17.12.2018

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REGULATION (EU) 2015/2120 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL

of 25 November 2015

laying down measures concerning open internet access and retail charges for regulated intra-EU communications and amending Directive 2002/22/EC and Regulation (EU) No 531/2012

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(Text with EEA relevance)

Article 1

Subject matter and scope

1. This Regulation establishes common rules to safeguard equal and non-discriminatory treatment of traffic in the provision of internet access services and related end-users’ rights.

2. This Regulation sets up a new retail pricing mechanism for Union-wide regulated roaming services in order to abolish retail roaming surcharges without distorting domestic and visited markets.

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3. This Regulation also lays down common rules to ensure that consumers are not charged excessive prices for making number-based interpersonal communications originating in the Member State of the consumer’s domestic provider and terminating at any fixed or mobile number in another Member State.

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Article 2

Definitions

For the purposes of this Regulation, the definitions set out in Article 2 of Directive 2002/21/EC apply.

The following definitions also apply:

(1)

‘provider of electronic communications to the public’ means an undertaking providing public communications networks or publicly available electronic communications services;

(2)

‘internet access service’ means a publicly available electronic communications service that provides access to the internet, and thereby connectivity to virtually all end points of the internet, irrespective of the network technology and terminal equipment used;

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(3)

‘regulated intra-EU communications’ means any number-based interpersonal communications service originating in the Member State of the consumer’s domestic provider and terminating at any fixed or mobile number of the national numbering plan of another Member State, and which is charged wholly or partly based on actual consumption;

(4)

‘number-based interpersonal communications service’ means number-based interpersonal communications service as defined in point (6) of Article 2 of Directive (EU) 2018/1972 of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 1 ).

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Article 3

Safeguarding of open internet access

1. End-users shall have the right to access and distribute information and content, use and provide applications and services, and use terminal equipment of their choice, irrespective of the end-user’s or provider’s location or the location, origin or destination of the information, content, application or service, via their internet access service.

This paragraph is without prejudice to Union law, or national law that complies with Union law, related to the lawfulness of the content, applications or services.

2. Agreements between providers of internet access services and end-users on commercial and technical conditions and the characteristics of internet access services such as price, data volumes or speed, and any commercial practices conducted by providers of internet access services, shall not limit the exercise of the rights of end-users laid down in paragraph 1.

3. Providers of internet access services shall treat all traffic equally, when providing internet access services, without discrimination, restriction or interference, and irrespective of the sender and receiver, the content accessed or distributed, the applications or services used or provided, or the terminal equipment used.

The first subparagraph shall not prevent providers of internet access services from implementing reasonable traffic management measures. In order to be deemed to be reasonable, such measures shall be transparent, non-discriminatory and proportionate, and shall not be based on commercial considerations but on objectively different technical quality of service requirements of specific categories of traffic. Such measures shall not monitor the specific content and shall not be maintained for longer than necessary.

Providers of internet access services shall not engage in traffic management measures going beyond those set out in the second subparagraph, and in particular shall not block, slow down, alter, restrict, interfere with, degrade or discriminate between specific content, applications or services, or specific categories thereof, except as necessary, and only for as long as necessary, in order to:

(a)

comply with Union legislative acts, or national legislation that complies with Union law, to which the provider of internet access services is subject, or with measures that comply with Union law giving effect to such Union legislative acts or national legislation, including with orders by courts or public authorities vested with relevant powers;

(b)

preserve the integrity and security of the network, of services provided via that network, and of the terminal equipment of end-users;

(c)

prevent impending network congestion and mitigate the effects of exceptional or temporary network congestion, provided that equivalent categories of traffic are treated equally.

4. Any traffic management measure may entail processing of personal data only if such processing is necessary and proportionate to achieve the objectives set out in paragraph 3. Such processing shall be carried out in accordance with Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 2 ). Traffic management measures shall also comply with Directive 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 3 ).

5. Providers of electronic communications to the public, including providers of internet access services, and providers of content, applications and services shall be free to offer services other than internet access services which are optimised for specific content, applications or services, or a combination thereof, where the optimisation is necessary in order to meet requirements of the content, applications or services for a specific level of quality.

Providers of electronic communications to the public, including providers of internet access services, may offer or facilitate such services only if the network capacity is sufficient to provide them in addition to any internet access services provided. Such services shall not be usable or offered as a replacement for internet access services, and shall not be to the detriment of the availability or general quality of internet access services for end-users.

Article 4

Transparency measures for ensuring open internet access

1. Providers of internet access services shall ensure that any contract which includes internet access services specifies at least the following:

(a)

information on how traffic management measures applied by that provider could impact on the quality of the internet access services, on the privacy of end-users and on the protection of their personal data;

(b)

a clear and comprehensible explanation as to how any volume limitation, speed and other quality of service parameters may in practice have an impact on internet access services, and in particular on the use of content, applications and services;

(c)

a clear and comprehensible explanation of how any services referred to in Article 3(5) to which the end-user subscribes might in practice have an impact on the internet access services provided to that end-user;

(d)

a clear and comprehensible explanation of the minimum, normally available, maximum and advertised download and upload speed of the internet access services in the case of fixed networks, or of the estimated maximum and advertised download and upload speed of the internet access services in the case of mobile networks, and how significant deviations from the respective advertised download and upload speeds could impact the exercise of the end-users’ rights laid down in Article 3(1);

(e)

a clear and comprehensible explanation of the remedies available to the consumer in accordance with national law in the event of any continuous or regularly recurring discrepancy between the actual performance of the internet access service regarding speed or other quality of service parameters and the performance indicated in accordance with points (a) to (d).

Providers of internet access services shall publish the information referred to in the first subparagraph.

2. Providers of internet access services shall put in place transparent, simple and efficient procedures to address complaints of end-users relating to the rights and obligations laid down in Article 3 and paragraph 1 of this Article.

3. The requirements laid down in paragraphs 1 and 2 are in...