Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) of 15 September 2020 (requests for a preliminary ruling from the Fővárosi Törvényszék — Hungary) — Telenor Magyarország Zrt. v Nemzeti Média- és Hírközlési Hatóság Elnöke

(Joined Cases C-807/18 and C-39/19) (1)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Electronic communications - Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 - Article 3 - Open internet access - Article 3(1) - Rights of end users - Right to access applications and services and to use them - Right to provide applications and services - Article 3(2) - Prohibition of agreements and commercial practices limiting the exercise of end users’ rights - Concepts of ‘agreements’, ‘commercial practices’, ‘end users’ and ‘consumers’ - Assessment of whether the exercise of end users’ rights is limited - Detailed rules - Article 3(3) - Obligation of equal and non-discriminatory treatment of traffic - Possibility of implementing reasonable traffic-management measures - Prohibition of measures blocking and slowing down traffic - Exceptions - Commercial practices consisting in offering packages which provide (i) that customers subscribing to them purchase a tariff entitling them to use a given data volume without restriction, without any deduction being made from that volume for using certain specific applications and services covered by ‘a zero tariff’ and (ii) that once the data volume has been used up, those customers may continue to use those specific applications and services without restriction, while measures blocking or slowing down traffic are applied to the other applications and services)

(2020/C 390/07)

Language of the case: Hungarian

Referring court

Fővárosi Törvényszék

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: Telenor Magyarország Zrt.

Defendant: Nemzeti Média- és Hírközlési Hatóság Elnöke

Operative part of the judgment

Article 3 of Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 laying down measures concerning open internet access and amending Directive 2002/22/EC on universal service and users’ rights relating to electronic communications networks and services and Regulation (EU) No 531/2012 on roaming on public mobile communications networks within the Union must be interpreted as meaning that packages made available by a provider of internet access services through agreements concluded with end users, and under which (i) end users may purchase a tariff entitling them to use a specific volume of data without restriction, without any deduction being made from that data volume for using certain specific applications and services covered by ‘a zero tariff’ and (ii) once that data volume has been used up, those end users may continue to use those specific applications and services without restriction, while measures blocking or slowing down traffic are applied to the other applications and services available:

— are incompatible with Article 3(2) of Regulation 2015/2120, read in conjunction with Article 3(1) of that regulation, where those packages, agreements, and measures blocking or slowing down traffic limit the exercise of end users’ rights, and

— are incompatible with Article 3(3) of that regulation where those measures blocking or slowing down traffic are based on commercial considerations.

(1) OJ C 139, 15.4.2019.