Blogs

German ISP imposes data caps, discriminates in favour of own services

By EDRi · April 24, 2013

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: [Deutsche Telekom drosselt das Internet | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_11.8_Deutsche_Telekom_drosselt_das_Internet?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20130424]

On 22 April 2013, the biggest German Internet operator Deutsche Telekom
officially confirmed abandoning all contracts that offer flat rates for
fixed Internet connections. Instead of investing in urgently needed
broadband infrastructure in Germany, the operator announced starting
throttling connections and introducing contracts with the following data
caps:

– Rates with a speed up to 16 Mbit/s: 75 GB
– Rates with a speed up to 50 Mbit/s: 200 GB
– Rates with a speed up to 100 Mbit/s: 300 GB
– Rates with a speed up to 200 Mbit/s: 400 GB

As soon as these caps are exceeded, the Internet connection will be
slowed down to 384 Kbit/s. However, this will not include Telekom’s own
streaming services, the so-called “T-Entertain” programs. Moreover,
music streaming service Spotify will be favoured ahead of its
competitors – limiting the market for legal online music. After years of
demanding that ISPs become gatekeepers, the music industry has finally
got what it asked for.

Civil society groups in Germany harshly criticised Telekom’s decisions
and called for a legal protection of network neutrality, which would
prohibit any anti-competitive discrimination. EDRi-member Digitale
Gesellschaft condemned the decision as a “retrograde move back to the
level of the 1990s”.

The decision of Deutsche Telekom confirms that Commission’s wait and see
approach on net neutrality is increasingly unsustainable. Only a few
days earlier, the European Consumers’ Organisation (BEUC) and EDRi
warned the Commission in a call for action that “reckless
experimentation will continue unless the European Commission puts a stop
to it.”

Call for Action sent to the European Commission (04.2013)
https://edri.org/files/2013-BEUC-EDRi-NN.pdf

Digitale Gesellschaft: Telecom tariff changes: frontal assault on net
neutrality (only in German, 22.04.2013)

Telekom-Tarifänderungen: Frontalangriff auf die Netzneutralität

Der Spiegel: The Telecom strangled the Internet (only in German, 23.04.2013)
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/sascha-lobo-ueber-dsl-flatrates-die-telekom-erdrosselt-das-internet-a-895975.html

(Contribution by Kirsten Fiedler – EDRi)