EU telcos throttle VOIP

European Union (EU) telcos are using traffic management practices to block voice over IP (VOIP) traffic and peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing activity online, according to an EU regulator, The Register reports.

The Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications (BEREC) says it has established the common use of the practices as part of its preliminary findings in analysing data on traffic management collected from approximately 400 telecoms operators across the EU.

BEREC is made up of representatives from each of the national telecoms regulators in the 27 EU countries, including Ofcom in the UK.

Data from around 250 fixed-line and 150 mobile ISPs found that many are applying their traffic-shaping technologies to Internet chat services like Skype as well as P2P systems such as Bittorrent, Gizmodo states.

Throttling is implemented on the network and typically done through deep packet inspection (DPI), a practice that digital rights organisations see as particularly worrying from a privacy point of view, PC World says.

"Blocking of online services is downright unacceptable and illegitimate throttling should be stamped out," says Monique Goyens, director general of the European consumer organisation BEUC.

However, ISPs insist that DPI is necessary in order to keep networks operating smoothly while demand for bandwidth-heavy applications intensifies.

About one-third of the fixed operators taking part in the BEREC study claim that they manage their networks in order to offer services such as telephony or TV "alongside a public and best efforts Internet access service".