On 4 September 2019, Cullen International hosted a seminar on zero rating. Three different studies issued by the OECD, the Austrian regulator RTR and Epicenter.works were presented by their authors.

Professor Axel Gautier (University of Liege) presented a summary of the main findings of the three studies.

The OECD and RTR studies show that, because of the variety of offers available, the effects of zero rating practices are not systematic and require a case-by-case approach from regulators around the globe.

Zero rating consists in exempting specific types of traffic from the data cap included in the end user’s subscription.

In Europe, the 2015 Telecoms Single Market Regulation (TSM) does not explicitly ban zero rating practices.

However, national regulatory authorities (NRAs) should examine practices on a case-by-case basis and should be able to intervene when "agreements or commercial practices would, by reason of their scale, lead to situations where end users' choice is materially reduced in practice".

The 2016 BEREC guidelines on the implementation of these net neutrality provisions confirm that NRAs should use a case-by-case approach to assess if “end users’ choice is materially reduced in practice” by a specific offer.

Available presentations from the event:

• Verena Weber - OECD study on the effects of zero rating
• András Róbert Király and Anton Schwarz – RTR study on Zero-Rating in the EU - An empirical investigation into the effects on data caps and prices in 15 countries 
• Prof Axel Gautier (University of Liège) - Discussion with participants

Download the event summary

Download Cullen International's infographic on the state of play of Zero Rating