EU’s NGN Recommendation & Hadopi: No Harm Without Some Good Without More Harm

It seems that the French plans for the infamous law to enforce telcos to disconnect users from the Internet when they are caught distributing/downloading copyrighted material after having been warned twice about, did some good for the telecom reform in the continent after all.

EU assembly has initially compromised for a softer understanding of user rights that changed the respective clause from “no restrictions may be imposed on the fundamental rights and freedoms of end users without a prior ruling by the judicial authorities” to “the right to a judgment by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law and acting in respect of due process“.

However, after France’s tough approach (informally called the HADOPI law) legislators in the parliament returned to their initial strong stance against the (un)intentional abuse of user Internet rights. This led the negotiations regarding the Telecoms Package to a deadend and eventual block.

This has significant implications to the NGN recommendation by the European Commission as the wider telecommunications reform and the NGN recommendation to spur investments in next-generation networks are linked. As a result, the final version of the NGN recommendation is rescheduled for next year.

Having said that, here’s the billion-euros question: What should the member states do; Carry on with their NGN/NGA plans or wait for the EU’s recommendation?