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▲ Lio 2 days ago

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 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

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 2 days ago | parent [-]

Can you elaborate on what was wrong with your cellular connection?

▲m_gloeckl 2 days ago | parent [-]

My plan advertises "up to 50 Mbit/s" on a 4G connection. I was getting less than 1 Mbit/s a lot of the time. Websites and videos would not load properly.

I downloaded the app of the german ministry that allows you to take speed tests and file a complaint. After multiple weeks of measuring connection speeds on the cellular network, I was able to file a complaint.

▲antongribok 2 days ago | parent [-]

What did the provider do? Did they put your IMEI onto some list of other customers that complained, where all of you get better network prioritization?

I'm genuinely curious.

▲lukan 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"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 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

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.

▲im3w1l 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

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.

▲fluoridation 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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.

▲Telaneo 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

But the true link speed's not even what's being asked for. 4K Netflix never goes above 20 Mbps as far as I know, so getting just 1/50 the advertised speed to one of the most well-known internet services in existence, hardly seems like a big ask, especially when the only reason that it can't reach that speed or higher is because of the ISP, given that swapping to one that aren't being knobheads about it fixes the problem. It should be the responsibility of the ISP to keep links to other parts of the internet as open as possible. If real-world constraints prevent the speed from being all that high, because it's a shitty server in Australia, then that's understandable. This however, isn't that.

All I'm getting from this is that it's a good idea to label ISPs utilities and bring the hammer down if they're being knobheads about it.

▲kbolino 2 days ago | parent [-]

It is mostly the middle, and not either of the endpoints, that is the real problem. You have a 1Gbps link, the Netflix DC you're reaching probably has multiple links with aggregated bandwidth measured in Tbps, but at some point in between the two there's a 10Gbps link being shared between 5000 subscribers at peak times and now the bottleneck is 2Mbps per subscriber. This link may or may not be under your ISP's (or Netflix's ISP's) control, and it may or may not be the only relevant bottleneck.

The solution that was developed in the Netflix-Comcast fight over a decade ago is content distribution. Instead of trying to build out extra capacity in every possible link, you shorten the path and thus reduce the number of contended links involved in each interaction. This scales much better, but it has two major problems: the first is rightsholders and their obnoxious anti-piracy restrictions, and the second is good old jurisdictional friction and economic misalignment. Somebody has to own the physical servers in all the myriad locations that keep the content closer to the consumer. If the ISP owns them, then they naturally want to exploit them. If Netflix owns them, they naturally don't want to serve their competitors. If a third party owns them, you address those two problems (potentially) but add new ones around liability, non-disclosure, competitiveness, etc.

If regulation is going to be useful here, it needs to focus on opening up opportunities to serve the unsexy middle of the infrastructure puzzle and not just the most visible parts that consumers/voters usually interact with. Also, "Netflix" needs to be understood as just a stand-in for any high-bandwidth Internet service, as the landscape is constantly changing.

▲wmf 2 days ago | parent [-]

at some point in between the two there's a 10Gbps link being shared between 5000 subscribers at peak times and now the bottleneck is 2Mbps per subscriber. This link may or may not be under your ISP's (or Netflix's ISP's) control, and it may or may not be the only relevant bottleneck.

No, that link is absolutely under Vodafone's control. They're deliberately not upgrading it so that they can extort money from Netflix.

The solution ... is content distribution.

CDNs have been worldwide, including Germany, for a long time. That's not the problem here.

▲kbolino 2 days ago | parent [-]

There are two issues here.

If the CDN is so poorly interconnected with Vodafone that there's one bottlenecked link, then it's not really accomplishing its job, at least as far as "inside of Germany" is concerned. It might have reduced pressure on another bottleneck, like links between the US and the EU, but it still needs to spread out more. If Vodafone is blocking that, then pressure should be applied to force them to open up more connections. I'm assuming this CDN serves more than just Netflix, mind you.

Secondly, the question of responsibility cannot be answered the same way today that it was answered in the Internet of universities. Netflix and Vodafone are not peers. The bandwidth ratio between them is incredibly lopsided. This will never change, there is no foreseeable scenario under which Vodafone has a reason to send anywhere near the same amount of data to Netflix as it gets back. This asymmetrical relationship inherently implies a different kind of business arrangement than traditional peering.

What Vodafone (any ISP) provides to Netflix (any content provider) is access to consumers. This is a service, and services are not free. The natural monopoly ISPs enjoy implies some degree of regulatory restraint must be applied on them, but it does not mean they bear all the costs of all the infrastructure either.

However, my bigger point is that this cannot constantly be reduced to these two-party analyses. Netflix is waning, others are rising, this problem needs to be solved in a scalable way.

▲wmf 2 days ago | parent [-]

Nah, you're just an apologist for rent-seeking ISPs and you're trying to cloud the argument with unnecessary details.

▲inemesitaffia 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There's no requirement for providers to peer settlement free.

See Chinese providers who will happily buy transit from everyone but make sure it's choked

▲kbolino 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

▲wmf 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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

▲fluoridation 2 days ago | parent [-]

The question was whether a customer could do something.

▲wmf 2 days ago | parent [-]

I suppose in aggregate the customers could use their elected government to fix the problem. In theory.

▲wat10000 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

▲dvdkon 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

At least here in the Czech Republic, ISPs have to also list a "guaranteed speed", and it can't be less than some fraction of the advertised maximum. I don't know what part of the Internet that speed is supposed to be measured against, though.

▲toast0 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There's definitely not anything in the contract that promises performance to a 3rd party, especially not in a residential contract. The legal options are switch to a different ISP and/or start a new one. Not always easy or practical, but there you go.

Who is to say where the performance problem is? Certainly not your contract.

Maybe if the last mile is cronically congested, or between the local aggregation switch and their regional exchange points, you might have a legal case. But if the issue is insufficient connectivity between their network and other networks, I would be very surprised if the contract terms covered that at all.

There's a bunch of networks throughout the world where their policies mean you can get more economically acheive better connectivity to their customers by hosting outside the geographic boundaries of the network rather than inside it. Doesn't make sense from a theoretical point of view, but when German ISPs won't interconnect within Germany, serve their customers from Poland or France and the connectivity picture may change significantly. Worst case, serve them from the US (but the latency may be too high)

▲tracker1 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Are there competing options, or are they a monopoly?

▲aktuel 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

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 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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 2 days ago | parent [-]

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.

▲hilbert42 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.).

▲lifestyleguru 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

▲amaccuish 2 days ago | parent [-]

That's not relevant. Over a Deutsche Telekom phone line you can choose an ISP. The ISP sometimes has a layer two connection to you and therefore has their own infrastructure or they have a layer 3 connection in which case you suffer from the Telekom policies.

Layer 2 = their infrastructure connects you to the internet

Layer 3 = theyre literally just a reseller, DTAG is providing your internet connection, the ISP just billing etc.

▲lifestyleguru 2 days ago | parent [-]

That's too many words for simply saying "The fastest available DSL is 16Mbit/s and the customer service will be rude and useless".

▲aidenn0 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sounds like their largest competitor (DT) is already doing this.

▲rurban 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There's no monopoly, it is a cartel. Most big businesses in Germany operate in cartels to fuck the customer.

▲fuzzy2 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No monopoly. Only for cable internet, which may be a possible argument. For landline internet (DSL), there's plenty of alternatives.

▲lxgr 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Unfortunately, having a landline capable of DSL is no longer the default in Germany.

Some apartment buildings exlusively offer DOCSIS via a single provider (as there's never been any unbundling of the DOCSIS "local loop"; presumably under the assumption that a landline will always be available anyway?).

If that one provider is oversubscribed, you're pretty much out of luck.

▲Retric 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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.

▲namibj 2 days ago | parent [-]

They mean VDSL; that's 100~200 Mbit down and 10~24~50 Mbit up.

▲Retric 2 days ago | parent [-]

VDSL2 can hit those speeds in optimal conditions, but at the end of last year ~14% of Germans have internet under 10Mbps and ~17% where 10-30Mbps.

▲okanat 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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.

▲lxgr 2 days ago | parent [-]

Some new apartments also simply lack phone lines. No idea how that's legal (since there is no competition at all on DOCSIS, unlike on DSL, in Germany), but it's a thing these days.