In the dispute over so-called heavy users with mobile phone data, the North Rhine-Westphalia Higher Administrative Court has temporarily stopped the Federal Network Agency. The supervisory authority had prohibited a nationwide provider from giving lower priority to customers with unlimited or very large data volumes when radio cells were overloaded. According to the OVG, it is currently unclear whether this contractual clause with the so-called deprioritization is compatible with European law. The emergency decision cannot be appealed.
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According to the assessment of the 13th Senate, whether this is an unjustified unequal treatment of customers still needs to be clarified. In the main proceedings, the OVG in Münster will probably ask the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for a preliminary ruling.
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The dispute concerns the question of whether the data transport of, for example, high-resolution video streaming may be restricted or slowed down for the duration of a network overload, as the mobile phone provider stipulates in its contractual clause. The Federal Network Agency, based in Bonn, had ordered that this clause may not be enforced.
The Federal Network Agency prevailed in the lower court. The OVG changed the decision of the Cologne Administrative Court.
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