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On April 25, civil society organizations and consumer advocates filed a complaint against Deutsche Telekom (DT) with Germany’s Federal Network Agency. According to the complaint, Germany's largest network provider does not treat all online services equally, but instead, DT is artificially slowing down the network and only allows unrestricted access for a fee. The complainants argue that DT is breaching net neutrality principles by forcing online services to pay for proper delivery across its network; services that do not pay would experience degraded or even blocked access. The complaint raises a democratic concern, warning that this model allows large players to buy broader reach and visibility, distorting fair access to information and undermining diversity of opinion online.
This is not the first time, Germany’s, and Europe’s, largest telecoms operator is violating network neutrality. In 2013, Deutsche Telekom announced plans to throttle internet speeds for users exceeding certain data limits, while exempting its own services from these restrictions. The move was criticized for violating net neutrality principles. In the end, the Cologne Regional Court ruled against these throttling clauses, leading Deutsche Telekom to remove such provisions from its contracts. Then, in 2017, Germany’s Federal Network Agency declared that DT’s “StreamOn”, its controversial zero-rating tariff option, partially violated net neutrality rules. The case made it all the way up to the European Court of Justice, which, in 2021, eventually ruled that Deutsche Telekom's "StreamOn" offer violated EU net neutrality regulations. The service allowed unlimited data streaming for certain content providers without counting against users' data caps, which was deemed discriminatory against other services. Three years later, in 2020, DT again thought it was appropriate to take advantage of the world’s worst pandemic to exploit its users. The German Research Network (DFN), anticipating an increase in traffic due to the shift in online lectures because of COVID, requested to peer – i.e. exchange traffic – directly with Germany’s telecoms champion. DTdenied, resulting in a “chargeable global upstream”. The end result was unnecessary bottlenecks that degraded the users’ experience, at a time when Internet connectivity was vital for the continued and smooth functioning of societies. And, then again, in 2024, DT was accused of creating artificial bottlenecks by not adequately expanding its network interconnection capacities, allegedly pressuring content providers to pay for better access. Specifically, Meta (formerly Facebook) decided to reroute its data traffic through third-party providers to avoid fees imposed by Deutsche Telekom, leading to a much-publicized legal dispute. These instances highlight ongoing tensions between DT’s business practices and net neutrality principles. While the exact number of violations is not specified, the recurring nature of these issues indicates a concerning pattern. The thing to understand is that all this is happening in the midst of a debate in the EU that now counts more than three years. In 2022, the CEOs of Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, Vodafone, and Orange published an open letter, calling “for large content platforms to contribute to the cost of European digital infrastructure that carries their services.” Claiming that the current situation is “not sustainable” for their companies, they argued that “Europe will fall behind” if this situation is not addressed. Having the blind support of former Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, their idea went as far as it could before it got stricken down by Europe’s entire digital ecosystem, including academics, civil society organizations, start-ups, the European Broadcasting Organization, Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO), the European Consumer Organization, the European Internet Exchange Association, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, and even the majority of member states. The list goes on… You could ask, why are we still discussing this then? There are different reasons a bad idea that could have severe consequences to Europe’s competitiveness and future as a digital market continues to persist. One reason is the legitimate dissatisfaction about aspects of big tech – content moderation and competition issues in particular, which telcos have used as a stepping stone to push for their own agenda. Another reason is the fact that telcos have always disliked the Internet and the disruption it has caused to their termination monopolies. And, then there is also the fact that telcos have not as much as they could do with regards to connectivity and infrastructure investment and this reality is catching up with Europe’s digital needs. In all these, the common denominator is European telcos. Under pressure from telcos, therefore, the EU Commission is trying to find a way to appease them. The EUCommission's White Paper "How to master Europe's digital infrastructure needs?", released last year, lays the groundwork for a comprehensive reform of the EU's telecom and digital infrastructure landscape. It aims to address challenges in achieving the EU's Digital Decade 2030 targets by proposing the development of a Digital Networks Act (DNA). A significant aspect of the White Paper is its consideration of extending certain telecommunications regulations to encompass content and application providers, including cloud service providers. This includes discussions around access obligations and dispute resolution mechanisms. The idea of a dispute resolution mechanism is another way telcos have been trying to upend network neutrality rules and change the interconnection regime in Europe. It is an idea borrowed from the publishing world, where various countries, including Australia, Canada and France have mandated big technology companies to enter secretive negotiations with big publishing houses. And, although these policies have been in effect for some time now, little is known about their effectiveness. Existing research alludes to the fact that there is “ambiguity as to why some news publishers receive funding and not others, and [there are] concerns about a hierarchy among news businesses between the most powerful who are able to negotiate deals, and others who are set aside. In general, there are concerns about a lack of transparency in the bargaining process.” Now, replace “news publishers” with “telcos”. DT claims that they care about the open Internet, about users and Europe. Respectfully, I don’t think so. Only a couple of months ago, DT’s CEO, made the tone-deaf claim that Europe needs a DOGE department. Yes, you heard correct. Even if we put aside the privacy violations, administrative procedure breaches, and unprecedented challenges to established legal frameworks governing federal information security that DOGE has created, the fact that DT issuggesting something like this, points to a much larger issue: telcos will stop at nothing in order to get their own way. Europe has a functioning interconnection market and it is one of the last beacons of hope for the open Internet, especially considering the unpredictability of the current US administration. Additionally, as Europe continues to champion free trade, this can only be achieved through the open, global and interoperable Internet because the open Internet eliminates many of the traditional barriers to commerce by enabling unrestricted access to global markets, information, and communication. Any proposal – direct or indirect – that attempts to undermine network neutrality will also undermine any chances for Europe to continue to champion and promote free trade. Comments are closed.
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