Users' quality-of-service criteria for Internet access in Europe

As part of the eEurope initiative undertaken by the European Commission aimed at improving awareness and use of information technology, a project was funded to identify the quality of service (QoS) criteria of concern to the users of Internet access in Europe. These criteria and any other findings would form the basis for discussion on whether or not the Internet service providers (ISPs) of Europe should provide (on a voluntary or mandatory basis) information on delivered levels of quality for the benefit of users and perhaps to the ISPs themselves. This article briefly describes the methodology used and lists the QoS criteria believed to be most relevant to most users in Europe. Some future courses of actions are also described. The project was managed by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) under a Special Task Force by the author.