I think the open internet like it existed in the late 90s and early 2000s is never coming back. Luckily tech got cheap enough that I believe we eventually will have continent wide grass roots mesh networks and uncensorable free communication again.
Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time
111–120 of 225 posts
Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
No monopoly. Only for cable internet, which may be a possible argument. For landline internet (DSL), there's plenty of alternatives.
High speed internet is a market not just internet access. Email might not care that your on a DSL connection but a streamer can’t generally use DSL as a substitute.
They mean VDSL; that's 100~200 Mbit down and 10~24~50 Mbit up.
Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time
#113I recently moved to a Dutch municipality that runs its own non-profit ISP. They installed a symmetric 1 Gbps fiber connection with a static IP at my house for 40 euros per month. The service is solid, there’s no upselling or throttling, and hosting things from home just works. I bring this up because when we talk about “open”, “fair” and “monopolies” the model of a local, non-profit ISP backed by the municipality cou…
While this is great when it works it does raise some interesting challenges, what happens if the ISP loses money, should taxes be used to cover the cost since this is a public service? Is it reasonable for this ISP to undercut commercial offerings? Internet is in a weird grey zone where it's almost a utility but not on the same level as water or sewage. I'm glad this non-profit ISP exists but on a national level I wo…
In Austria the Internet, like the postal service, is a Universal Service ("Universaldienst"). As such, any completely unserviced citizen can petition the current Finance Minister to decree an ISP of his choice - usually A1, which is the privatized form of our former public office for postal services and telegraphs - to service their area. The costs of facilitating the servicing of this area are covered by all active ISPs of a certain size operating in Austria.
Telecommunications law in Europe is a very interesting thing.
Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think there really is much that can be done. Even under ideal conditions, an ISP could only possibly guarantee the advertised link speed between you and their routers, not between you and any particular node on the Internet. Is it possible an ISP might be doing things that harm the QoS? Yeah, sure. But the angle to approach that problem is not by complaining about instances of limited bandwidth.
In the US the FCC named and shamed broadband ISPs for their low speeds and "magically" those speeds increased over the following years. Overcome with greed, some ISPs eventually found ways to cheat on the benchmarks though. https://www.fcc.gov/general/measuring-broadband-america
The question was whether a customer could do something.
Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time
#115Not to say that Mr. Musk seems popular in Germany, nor that orbital dynamics are friendly to high user densities, but ...
https://inter.link "Trusted By: SpaceX"
Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time
#116Bell Canada also has had a long-standing policy of refusing to peer with internet exchanges. They'll only truly peer with other direct backbone providers and a handful of one-off peer with other large networks (google, cloud flare, etc), but their historical position as Canada's base backbone (not so much anymore, but it was definitely a thing pre-2005) has meant their policy is most people should pay them to peer. I…
> also their lack of IPv6 on anything but their mobile network is annoying.
This gives me even less confidence after BCE took over ZiplyFiber, US PNW provider. There's a long running joke about IPv6 just one more lab test away from deployment.
Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time
#117This isn't unique to Vodafone. Google has also been slowly withdrawing from IXes globally in favor of PNIs and "VPPs" (verified peering providers). This only makes it harder for smaller networks to establish presence on the internet and feels pretty anti-competitive. On the flip side, IXes are becoming harder and less desirable to participate in: port fees are going up, useful networks are withdrawing, low quality ne…
I thought Google was _always_ like this. At least going back to 2015 when I left the ISP game, peering with them was notoriously difficult if you didn't have the traffic volumes required. Our network suffered from asynchronous routing to Google and Netflix for years because they refused to allow our routes despite checking all the boxes they require. Customers eventually left because other (larger) ISPs didn't have t…
Why did your company expect Google to readily accept peering?
If there was such a large difference in volume they would be choosing to intentionally make it more difficult for themselves.
Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time
#118Wow, thanks I hate it.
Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time
#119Awesome. The only internet connection we get IN THE MIDDLE OF BERLIN is Vodafone Cable. Deutsche Telekom wants to build fiber here, but our landlord refuses to open the door to the cellar because he wants to kick everybody out and raise the rent for new tenants. What a time to be alive.
The issue here seems to be the landlord.
Part of the issue is that the landlord gets any say whatsoever about a public utility.
Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time
#120Awesome. The only internet connection we get IN THE MIDDLE OF BERLIN is Vodafone Cable. Deutsche Telekom wants to build fiber here, but our landlord refuses to open the door to the cellar because he wants to kick everybody out and raise the rent for new tenants. What a time to be alive.
The issue here seems to be the landlord.
Yes. It's the so called Berlin issue. If you're lucky enough to find an apartment, you have a good chance of getting a slumlord who does everything to make your life miserable.
I'd buy my own place, if there would be anything available. Probably need to move to another city or country.