Vodafone Germany is killing the open internet – one peering connection at a time
68 comments
·November 7, 2025phineyes
mike_hearn
What sort of verification are they doing? Is this trend being pushed by the lack of proper security on BGP?
stroebs
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 this issue.
I get why the enshittification of IXPs is occurring. Over the years many small and careless ISPs have caused issues for IXPs (and peers) based on what I've seen on mailing lists. It's hard work managing many hundreds or thousands of peers, let alone the equipment cost with multi-100Gbit ports becoming the norm for larger providers.
hylaride
Bell 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'm not sure if it's still the case, but IIRC for awhile they also refused to peer with any other domestic backbone providers.
The result has been some funny routes sometimes. I live in Toronto and have seen trace routes bounce over to Chicago to connect to stuff colocated here in Toronto.
It's frustrating as their fibre is my only real high speed option; also their lack of IPv6 on anything but their mobile network is annoying.
jacquesm
That's insane given that Front St. 151 is probably the best spot on North America when it comes to connectivity.
lwn
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 could offer a real alternative. It doesn’t directly solve the peering issues, but it shifts the balance of power (and cost) somewhat.
LaurensBER
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 would prefer (strong) net neutrality laws. Probably not an issue in NL but in less developed countries neutrality isn't guaranteed.
linohh
Usually these ISPs are part of or under the municipal utility provider. So if they lose money, it first gets offset by profits from other utilities and eventually yes, the taxpayer will step in, directly or indirectly. No big deal. No one is complaining about subsidies for water or power lines in rural areas, neither should they when it comes to internet. Remember: These ISPs were founded because the market was already failing to provide decent offers or any at all.
redserk
Why make the assumption that municipalities must treat their internet services as a second-rate utility? Many local governments are competently run.
If the internet is out, it's going to be just as visible and probably will yield as many complaints as losing power, sewer, and water.
pimeys
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.
Lio
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.
m_gloeckl
You can file a complaint with the "Federal ministry for digital transformation" (formed this year). It does actually work, but it's a lengthy process.
I did force my cell phone carrier to grant me proper 4G speeds last year, after spending many hours with their help line and ultimately complaining to the (then) ministry of transportation and digital infrastructure.
afeuerstein
Can you elaborate on what was wrong with your cellular connection?
lukan
"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)
Telaneo
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.
fluoridation
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.
tracker1
Are there competing options, or are they a monopoly?
hilbert42
This is a bit messy but if there are completing options at a given location install multiple ISPs and run them concurrently and log the details—download speeds, etc.
There's nothing as good as hard verifiable data—even if regulators play hardball and favor ISPs then you've the evidence to whip up political action (claim biased decisions, etc.).
aktuel
Depends on the region. Often there are smaller regional companies providing fiber internet. Prices for these fiber connections a still somewhat higher than the cheapest vodafone tier, but you also get better service for your money.
growt
Afaik almost a monopoly: there is Deutsche Telekom which does the same thing and Vodafone. I think apart from some local providers almost everybody else is just a reseller of one of the two.
fweimer
There are resellers that do not just rebrand a whitebox product, but have their own IP addresses, network and peering polices. Their customers are not necessarily impacted by the IP peering policies of the company that owns the access network.
aidenn0
Sounds like their largest competitor (DT) is already doing this.
fuzzy2
No monopoly. Only for cable internet, which may be a possible argument. For landline internet (DSL), there's plenty of alternatives.
Retric
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.
okanat
Yes and no. There are other providers in Germany. However, with the EU's neoliberal privatization policy the governments privatized many existing infrastructure. Vodafone bought the previous government company that owned all of the the cable TV infrastructure of Germany. So they are a monopoly of a particular type of internet connection. Depending on the place the alternatives could be too slow since Germany also has an aging population that do not {care about, demand} higher internet speeds and didn't upgrade its copper infrastructure due to corruption.
lifestyleguru
In Germany in specific building there is only one provider available in your telephone socket, and one in your cable socket in your apartment. Frequently there is no cable socket.
fuzzy2
It's important to keep in mind that Deutsche Telekom is basically doing the same, and has been… forever?
I disagree with this move, but it is not without precedent.
sadeshmukh
They mention it extensively in the article.
kleiba
I suppose OP is hinting at the fact that Germans are probably already used to having one of the shittiest internet services in the Western world.
binome
Interesting take, but generally large, incumbent eyeball networks have refrained from open peering at IX's for decades at this point. They maintained presences, but usually just to grab a few specific peers they wanted, not to peer broadly with everyone across the exchange, and the bulk of traffic from large providers into eyeball networks comes across PNIs or on-net CDN nodes, not IX.
If anything, this move to centralized PNIaaS platforms makes interconnecting with the eyeball networks even easier for smaller providers. The portals allow for straightforward visibility on what they want to charge for paid peering, and instant automated EVCs and turnup, shortcutting the long and windy process of negotiating terms and establishing individual XCs in DCs that you agree to peer in.
meibo
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 out services are with Telekom Germany. Or in an authoritarian nation that blocks access to western services.
danogentili
Seems pretty much a private equivalent of "fair share" govt regulation currently being pushed by ISPs in Europe through lobbying with the Digital Networks Act (https://www.namex.it/toward-the-digital-networks-act-the-fut..., https://stopdna.eu/).
South Korea pioneered fair share govt regulations in 2016 (which caused Twitch to exit the market in 2024 due the exorbitant "fair share" fees).
naIak
Refusing to peer directly is not “killing the free internet”. This level of hyperbole doesn’t help your argument.
ThinkBeat
Using Starlink as your Internet provider does not protect you in any way when it comes to changes in pricing, speed or connectivity.
Jackson__
Yeah, the blog post took a bit of a weird turn there + the AI slop headers are also quite off putting. I know this may be conspiracy territory, but it does make me wonder whether this is guerilla marketing to ensure big E meets the sale goals for his $1T payment.
fweimer
Is doing business with Inter.link really structurally different from getting connectivity to an exchange like DE-CIX and doing business there? I know that in theory, you get settlement-free peering at exchanges, but only for those networks that participate.
And who funds Inter.link? Their publicly available balance sheet shows significant, growing debts to a linked company, but it doesn't mention its name.
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 network participants are joining and widening blast radius. I'm not sure what the answer to this is, but this has not been a great year for the "open" internet.