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Small tangent, but I feel like it is a good time to drop the term "net neutrality", which covers way too much ground. In the past in political discussions, the

Small tangent, but I feel like it is a good time to drop the term "net neutrality", which covers way too much ground. In the past in political discussions, the term "violation of net neutrality" was used to protest multiple different issues: * Traffic shaping (e.g. slowing down Bittorrent traffic) * Traffic fast lanes (pay for priority access to some content providers) * Selective zero-rating (exclude some providers from counting towards a traffic limit) * Artificial peering restriction (what Telekom is doing, usually via forcing content providers into paid peering agreements) I think people should start using more specific terms that are understandable for non-technical people, because otherwise the discussion becomes confused, which helps the providers. Lots of semi-technical people think that "violating net neutrality" refers to traffic fast lanes, because the last time this discussion entered the public was when the US social media was in uproar about FCC rules 10 years ago. What Telekom is doing looks similar to the outside (some content providers are fast, some are not), but they can just deflect by saying that they do not intentionally throttle traffic, which is pretty much true, as they hit their physical bottlenecks. If you are knowledgable enough as a lawmaker to press them on the peering issue, they could argue that forcing peering would force them to pay rent at Internet Exchanges, just so other providers have good access. Where they also kind of have a point. And even lots of technical people have no clue about peering, transit etc. and treat their uplink as a blackbox, a cloud in their network chart where the Internet comes out. For the Telekom case, we would need a different legislation, for example make paid peering agreements between providers illegal or at least regulated, which would then be an incentive to be generally well-connected (free mutual peering is usually considered a win-win scenario unless you are Deutsche Telekom and can use your market power to bully other market participants into another form of rent extraction). And that means that lawmakers and the public need to understand first the specific problem we are fighting.

sgjohnson 8mo ago
> For the Telekom case, we would need a different legislation, for example make paid peering agreements between providers illegal or at least regulated, which would then be an incentive to be generally well-connected (free mutual peering is usually considered a win-win scenario unless you are Deutsche Telekom and can use your market power to bully other market participants into another form of rent extraction). And that means that lawmakers and the public need to understand first the specific problem we are fighting. Realistically not going to happen, as the effort would need to be global. Like, Cogent STILL refuses to transit-free IPv6 peer with HE. https://bgp.tools/kb/partitions https://bgp.tools/kb/partitions. T1s are very happy where they are, and it's an exclusive club. Any attempts to tame this behavior from DTAG will also face backlash from basically all the other T1s.
- yayachiken 8mo ago
  Regulating peering within the EU would already be a win. The providers are then free to either move out of the EU market, or let their non-EU traffic flow via the (then likely larger) unrestricted pipes at DECIX and AMSIX. If they think that routing everything via EU is cheaper instead of just peering better in the other parts of the world to deliver traffic locally, then be it, that is their own economic freedom to decide so. But they will realistically not do that. Also, SDNs will likely never go back to serving content in Europe from e.g. the US. Good connectivity is just generally the economically better option. That being said, T1 companies like Deutsche Telekom who also serve a large consumer base via broadband and mobile and not just other large business networks are probably more vulnerable to such legislation than an exclusive transit provider.
  - sgjohnson 8mo ago
    > Regulating peering within the EU would already be a win. Regulating peering how? Freedom of commerce is one of the core pillars of the EU. Forcing a company to do business with another company is insanity. If DTAG doesn't want to peer with CloudFlare, you can't force them.
    - direwolf20 8mo ago
      WhatsApp has been required to provide an open API, Apple has been required to provide alternative app stores. Neither one has actually done it because the EU is too pussy to enforce the law, but the legislators clearly had no huge principle disagreement when writing these laws. Mobile networks have been forced to allow roaming in other countries for a certain low fee, and that is actually enforced and has happened. It's clear the EU has no qualms about forcing companies to do business a certain way when it serves some greater interest.
      - sgjohnson 8mo ago
        The difference between WhatsApp open API, alternative App Stores and forcing peering is that it costs virtually nothing for WhatsApp to provide an open API, and for Apple to allow alternative App Stores. Roam-like-at-home is also not a particularly good comparison here, because the the roaming fees were basically a price gouging scheme. Don't like DTAG? You're free to switch to another ISP.
andersa 8mo ago
People use the same word because all of those actions have the same result for an end user.
direwolf20 8mo ago
There's no such thing as paid peering, is there? There's only being a customer. DT wants you to buy transit to get access to their customers.
- yayachiken 8mo ago
  Peering just means that two AS physically connect to each other directly. Whether this peering is paid or not is independent from the technical implementation. Just nearly everybody except Telekom is doing this on a liberal and informal not-even-handshake basis. On ISP scale, you either invest in infrastructure, or pay rent for network ports or cross-links, and you generally want your traffic usage to be smooth without spikes, and also go to the destination without going through your expensive ports more than once. So general connectivity is more important than any kind of traffic metering.
  - direwolf20 8mo ago
    > peering just means that ... This also describes transit and describes getting internet service at home. I wouldn't say my cellphone peers with my provider. My cellphone is very much subordinate to my provider, not a peer. DT thinks it's important enough that it can extort everyone. A good policy for ISPs is to peer as many places and networks as possible, and carry traffic between your peers and customers, and customers and customers, and transit and customers, but not between peers and peers, or peers and transit. This way one end is paying for all traffic you carry. If you are a bully, you can try to make both ends pay.
    - yayachiken 8mo ago
      > This also describes transit and describes getting internet service at home. Well no. Transit means that you use another AS (usually by a larger ISP) to get connectivity to a certain AS. And as for your internet service at home, unless you announce an AS, you are not peering with anyone.
      - direwolf20 8mo ago
7bit 8mo ago
All the points you list contribute to the Internet being neutral or not, therefore of course these items come up in discussions.
wmf 8mo ago
Replacing net neutrality with a bunch of smaller issues means you have to educate and lobby N times as much. And every time ISPs find a new loophole you'd have to start from scratch. Looking at this case specifically, "fast lane" is not a technical term so maybe in your mind it only means packet scheduling not refusal to upgrade capacity but that's not a universal definition.

sgjohnson 8mo ago

> For the Telekom case, we would need a different legislation, for example make paid peering agreements between providers illegal or at least regulated, which would then be an incentive to be generally well-connected (free mutual peering is usually considered a win-win scenario unless you are Deutsche Telekom and can use your market power to bully other market participants into another form of rent extraction). And that means that lawmakers and the public need to understand first the specific problem we are fighting. Realistically not going to happen, as the effort would need to be global. Like, Cogent STILL refuses to transit-free IPv6 peer with HE. https://bgp.tools/kb/partitions https://bgp.tools/kb/partitions. T1s are very happy where they are, and it's an exclusive club. Any attempts to tame this behavior from DTAG will also face backlash from basically all the other T1s.

yayachiken 8mo ago
Regulating peering within the EU would already be a win. The providers are then free to either move out of the EU market, or let their non-EU traffic flow via the (then likely larger) unrestricted pipes at DECIX and AMSIX. If they think that routing everything via EU is cheaper instead of just peering better in the other parts of the world to deliver traffic locally, then be it, that is their own economic freedom to decide so. But they will realistically not do that. Also, SDNs will likely never go back to serving content in Europe from e.g. the US. Good connectivity is just generally the economically better option. That being said, T1 companies like Deutsche Telekom who also serve a large consumer base via broadband and mobile and not just other large business networks are probably more vulnerable to such legislation than an exclusive transit provider.
- sgjohnson 8mo ago
  > Regulating peering within the EU would already be a win. Regulating peering how? Freedom of commerce is one of the core pillars of the EU. Forcing a company to do business with another company is insanity. If DTAG doesn't want to peer with CloudFlare, you can't force them.
  - direwolf20 8mo ago
    WhatsApp has been required to provide an open API, Apple has been required to provide alternative app stores. Neither one has actually done it because the EU is too pussy to enforce the law, but the legislators clearly had no huge principle disagreement when writing these laws. Mobile networks have been forced to allow roaming in other countries for a certain low fee, and that is actually enforced and has happened. It's clear the EU has no qualms about forcing companies to do business a certain way when it serves some greater interest.
    - sgjohnson 8mo ago
      The difference between WhatsApp open API, alternative App Stores and forcing peering is that it costs virtually nothing for WhatsApp to provide an open API, and for Apple to allow alternative App Stores. Roam-like-at-home is also not a particularly good comparison here, because the the roaming fees were basically a price gouging scheme. Don't like DTAG? You're free to switch to another ISP.

andersa 8mo ago

People use the same word because all of those actions have the same result for an end user.

direwolf20 8mo ago

There's no such thing as paid peering, is there? There's only being a customer. DT wants you to buy transit to get access to their customers.

yayachiken 8mo ago
Peering just means that two AS physically connect to each other directly. Whether this peering is paid or not is independent from the technical implementation. Just nearly everybody except Telekom is doing this on a liberal and informal not-even-handshake basis. On ISP scale, you either invest in infrastructure, or pay rent for network ports or cross-links, and you generally want your traffic usage to be smooth without spikes, and also go to the destination without going through your expensive ports more than once. So general connectivity is more important than any kind of traffic metering.
- direwolf20 8mo ago
  > peering just means that ... This also describes transit and describes getting internet service at home. I wouldn't say my cellphone peers with my provider. My cellphone is very much subordinate to my provider, not a peer. DT thinks it's important enough that it can extort everyone. A good policy for ISPs is to peer as many places and networks as possible, and carry traffic between your peers and customers, and customers and customers, and transit and customers, but not between peers and peers, or peers and transit. This way one end is paying for all traffic you carry. If you are a bully, you can try to make both ends pay.
  - yayachiken 8mo ago
    > This also describes transit and describes getting internet service at home. Well no. Transit means that you use another AS (usually by a larger ISP) to get connectivity to a certain AS. And as for your internet service at home, unless you announce an AS, you are not peering with anyone.
    - direwolf20 8mo ago

7bit 8mo ago

All the points you list contribute to the Internet being neutral or not, therefore of course these items come up in discussions.

wmf 8mo ago

Replacing net neutrality with a bunch of smaller issues means you have to educate and lobby N times as much. And every time ISPs find a new loophole you'd have to start from scratch. Looking at this case specifically, "fast lane" is not a technical term so maybe in your mind it only means packet scheduling not refusal to upgrade capacity but that's not a universal definition.