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Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time

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Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time

#71

Post by im3w1l »

Telaneo wrote: post #21
lukan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you're paying for a 1Gbps connection" That's why you are paying for a "up to" 1Gbps connection. (I think it was already a struggle that they had to put the "up to" in the big advertisement)

Surely there's a reasonable expectation that Netflix would work at decent speeds, especially given that Netflix's infrastructure, nor the network load as a whole are to blame, but rather the specific ISP bureaucracy? Getting 1/1000 the listed speed does not strike me as something even a 75 year old computer neophyte of a judge would take kindly too, unless it were for very good reasons.

I think it's actually a quite complicated question and it only works because people are playing somewhat nice with each other. Like imagine if Netflix refused to peer with one particular ISP unless they paid an extortionate amount of money. Should the ISP be legally required to pay any price they name? I don't think that would be fair.

One solution could be to have geographically distributed test points. Any connection to be able to claim a certain speed has to be able to get that speed to those test points. And the test points are legally required to connect to anyone that can bring fiber to their doorstep. If someone plays hardball with peering there will then always be the backup option of routing traffic through one of the test points.

Idk, just throwing out ideas here.

Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time

#73

Post by Spivak »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #11
mystraline wrote: post #8

The play by major content providers is "not to pay" and "block inter.link" Sure, you lose Vodafone germany. Then you explain clearly why to every major media. This coukd be stopped fairly quickly.

Blocking seems overkill. Just put up a banner explaining why the service is slow, warning customers about their ISPs.

Because a banner is ignorable. A block will actually spur action.

Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time

#74

Post by amaccuish »

meibo wrote: post #50

The Telekom story mentioned in this article is 100% as bad as they make it out to be, most of the users we support with issues reaching our services are with Telekom Germany. Or in an authoritarian nation that blocks access to western services.

Can confirm, recently moved to o2, it was insufferable.

For anyone wondering: netzbremse.de/

EN https://netzbremse.de/en/

Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time

#75

Post by brynx97 »

phineyes wrote: post #14

This 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…

Google gave a presentation on this that I think is helpful context for "why": https://nanog.org/events/nanog-94/content/5452/

Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time

#76

Post by immibis »

pimeys wrote: post #55

Awesome. 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.

Deutsche Telekom is just as bad as Vodafone. IIRC the government stepped in and said they had to offer peering to everyone, so now they offer peering to everyone in some random hamlet in the middle of nowhere for 5000€ per month per gigabit, while peering at other locations and prices is still at their sole discretion.

Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time

#77

Post by wat10000 »

LaurensBER wrote: post #54
lwn wrote: post #48

I 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…

If it loses money, do some combination of raising prices and cutting costs. Aim for an average of zero profit/loss over the long term. Undercutting commercial offerings is perfectly fine if it works out that way.

Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time

#78

Post by wat10000 »

lukan wrote: post #17
Lio wrote: post #7

Is there anything that Vodafone customers can do legally to punish Vodafone or not delivering on their broadband contracts? If you're paying for a 1Gbps connection and Netflix is only able to stream to you at 0.93 Mbps because Vodafone or Inter.link are choking off the supply, surely that's breach of contract on Vodafone's part? I'm sure Cory Doctorow has a word for what's happening here.

"If you're paying for a 1Gbps connection" That's why you are paying for a "up to" 1Gbps connection. (I think it was already a struggle that they had to put the "up to" in the big advertisement)

There's always an implicit reasonableness requirement on these things. "Up to" isn't a wildcard that lets you do anything you want. It will protect you if you struggle to maintain top speeds during peak hours, or if a technical fault cuts speeds in half for a few days. But if you provide 1/1000th of what you claim to offer, "up to" won't stop a judge from observing that you're not really providing what you said you would.

Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time

#79

Post by metanonsense »

Ironic that I switched to HN from chess.com because Deutsche Telekom‘s peering with Cloudflare (or more its lack of) made the site even more unusable than usual. 5 minutes ago I thought „Maybe it’s time to switch to Vodafone“

Re: Vodafone Germany is changing the open internet, one peering connection at a time

#80

Post by trvz »

Even the first paragraph is wrong:

> There's a reason your internet feels like magic. When you click a YouTube video in Berlin, that data doesn't travel some convoluted path through half of Europe to reach you. It flows through something called an "internet exchange point"—a giant room full of routers where hundreds of networks connect directly, swapping traffic efficiently and, crucially, for free.

When you open a Youtube video page, the video is probably loaded from Google's caching servers located in your ISPs network.

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