Five years after the adoption of the regulation enshrining net neutrality on the Old Continent, the Court of Justice of the European Union is beginning to give it a legal interpretation. It validates the analysis that "free traffic" (or "zero rating") as applied by operators constitutes a violation of net neutrality.

In 2016, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) published guidelines on net neutrality which are binding on all its members. These guidelines make it very difficult in practice to use zero rating, even if it is not formally prohibited.

"Free traffic" is a commercial practice whereby an operator does not charge or account for the use of certain online services, even if they are used by the Internet user.

Although at first sight these offers may seem attractive, they pose various problems: the internet user does not have control over the choice of services selected. Above all, however, the zero rating could hinder or block access to rival platforms, thus distorting competition, according to the logic of commercial agreements between Internet access providers and content providers.

In this case, everything starts from Hungary with the Norwegian ISP Telenor, which proposed two access bundles with zero rating. Once the mobile data had been exhausted, Internet users could continue to use their access for the zero-rated services, while the other solutions were subject to a technical restriction by the operator.

After monitoring by the Hungarian Communications and Media Authority, it found that these subscriptions were in breach of the general obligation of equal and non-discriminatory treatment of traffic. It therefore naturally demanded that Telenor put an end to them.

However, the Norwegian ISP appealed to the court in Budapest and the latter asked the EUJC during the investigation to find out how to correctly read the European regulation establishing measures relating to open Internet access.

In the summary of the judgment, the ECJ stated that "the requirements of protection of the rights of Internet users and of non-discriminatory treatment of traffic preclude an ISP from favouring certain applications and services by means of offers which make those applications and services benefit from a zero tariff and subject the use of other applications and services to blocking or slowing down measures".

Nevertheless, is the European Court of Justice slashing the zero rating once and for all? Not really: the CJEU's call to order concerns very specifically decisions based on commercial considerations". Where measures to slow down or block traffic are based not on objective differences between the technical requirements in terms of quality of service for specific categories of traffic, but on commercial considerations, such measures are to be regarded, as such, as incompatible with the said provision", writes the CJEU Press Service.

A zero rating on a category of traffic or use may be envisaged by an operator. However, what is prohibited is selective zero rating.

 Read the article

Source : Numerama

This week, the Arcep unveiled its assessment of fiber optic deployments in the second quarter. And even though the milestone was reached under difficult containment conditions, half of French homes are now eligible for fiber optic cable. In fact, 1.2 million new lines were deployed between April and June. Fiber optic coverage of the territory is progressing at a "high rate", even if "the health situation related to Covid-19 has not allowed operators to continue the significant acceleration observed at the end of last year".

Despite severe restrictions due to the health crisis, work continued at a rate equivalent to that at the beginning of the year: around 400,000 lines per month. The equivalent of a town like Nemours or Granville... every day.

This dynamic allows us to calmly envisage the "five million new lines" in 2020 predicted by Minister Cédric O. If this pace is maintained for another two years, the executive will have kept its promise to bring fiber to 80% of French homes by the end of 2022.

However, the Arcep is showing its vigilance in one particular area: medium-sized cities. Indeed, in 2018 Orange and SFR made a commitment to the government and the regulator to cover them entirely with optical fiber by the end of 2020. And with 10.5 million connectable lines, they are still a long way off. Orange covers only 67% of households in the municipalities to which it has committed and SFR 75%.

In theory, they have nine months left to complete 5.5 million lines - an almost impossible task. Arcep's only concession: the deadline can be postponed by three months following the health crisis, as provided for in the government order on the extension of deadlines linked to the coronavirus. Even with this additional quarter, "the pace of deployments will be critical over the next few quarters and the Arcep will continue to be attentive to the efforts of operators", writes the Telecoms gendarme, who clearly has no intention of slackening on the subject.

 Read the article

Source : Les Echos

The fixed Internet access service provided by SFR and Bouygues Telecom was unavailable for several hours last week. Indeed, the DNS (Domain Name System) servers of several operators were affected. "The DNS servers are used by all companies. It's a bit like a telephone directory. They translate the domain name of a website into an IP address to talk to it. So they have a key role as gatekeepers. They are often among the Top 3 critical applications for ISPs," explains Ronan David, head of strategy at Efficient IP.

The inability to connect, for most SFR and Bouygues Telecom customers last Tuesday, results from the fact that you use an operator's DNS servers by default when you subscribe to its fixed Internet access service. However, they could have connected to other DNS servers by configuring the network connection of their box because the DNS servers are always ready to communicate with everyone. And this is their weakness. "Since they are by definition very open, they are also very vulnerable. They are therefore prime targets for hackers," says Ronan David.

This type of aggression is common among ISPs, but SFR and Bouygues Telecom consider it particularly virulent. According to the Dutch DDoS protection organization NBIP, the DDoS (or denial of service) attack has also affected other ISPs in Belgium and the Netherlands. It recorded volumetric peaks of nearly 300 Gbit/s in volume. A level well above the average. Ronan David confirms, "The volume of 89% of DDos DNS attacks is below 50 Gbit/s. Here, it was up to 300 Gbit/s, six times more than usual. This is completely atypical."

This was a reflection attack, for example. "In the case of a DDos type DNS attack by amplification, there is one target, the DNS server, and then there is reflection, which means that other DNS servers are used to amplify the attacks and overwhelm the target server with requests so that it is no longer available," explains Ronan David.

Were other ISPs' DNS servers used to amplify the attack? Were SFR and Bouygues Telecom specifically targeted, or was their failure a collateral damage of a larger operation? Mystery, but this prospect would be daunting for all operators.

Another enigma remains to be solved: who are the attackers? Several hypotheses can be put forward. It could be a rogue gang... Unless the objective was political: to test communications and bring down an Internet gateway. In this case, it could be hostile foreign powers.

 Read the article

Source : 01net

Called "Pacific Light Cable Network" (PLCN), the underwater fiber optic cable that was supposed to link Los Angeles to Hong Kong will finally not be built. This is indeed what Facebook and Google have just announced. The new plans for this cable filed with the U.S. telecom police, the FCC, indicate that it will connect only the United States to Taiwan and the Philippines.

This project, initially announced in 2016, was intended to connect Hong Kong directly to Los Angeles via six pairs of optical fibers. It had to be redesigned in a hurry to get approval from the US regulator, whose management is said to be close to the Trump administration.

Three companies share ownership of the consortium: Google owns one pair of fibers with a branch to Taiwan, Facebook owns another pair with branches to the Philippines, and the Hong Kong Pacific Light Data Co (PLDC) has control over all the remaining pairs and acts as the landing point in Hong Kong.

And it is this last part that poses a problem for the FCC. The FCC has therefore refused to operate this submarine cable system connecting directly to Hong Kong, arguing that it would be contrary to U.S. national security interests.

The U.S. Telecom Constabulary also argued that the high capacity and low latency of the network would encourage U.S. communications traffic crossing the Pacific to detour through Hong Kong before reaching its intended destination, unnecessarily increasing the amount of data passing through the Chinese government-controlled infrastructure. This has forced Google and Facebook to revise their plans.

"We can confirm that the original application for the PLCN cable system has been withdrawn, and a revised application has been submitted.... We continue to work through established channels to obtain landing licenses for our submarine cables," said Google management, interviewed by ZDNet editors.

The initial project had the potential to attract many U.S. companies to expand their customer base in Asia. The current tensions between Beijing and Washington are claiming other victims...

 Read the article

Source : ZDNet

On August 30th, the U.S. Internet service provider CenturyLink suffered a major technical failure. A misconfiguration in one of its data centers caused damage to the entire Internet network.

Involving both a firewall and BGP routing, this technical failure spread outside CenturyLink's network. This error also affected other Internet Service Providers (ISPs), ultimately causing connectivity problems for many other companies.

The technology giants whose services were disrupted include Amazon, Twitter, Microsoft (Xbox Live), EA, Blizzard, Steam, Discord, Reddit, Hulu, Duo Security, Imperva, NameCheap, OpenDNS, and many others.

Also severely affected, Cloudflare said that CenturyLink's outbound spread problem has resulted in a 3.5 percent drop in global Internet traffic. This would make it one of the largest Internet outages ever recorded.

According to CenturyLink's status page, the problem originated at its data center in Mississauga, a city near Toronto, Canada.

The ISP says the root cause of the incident is an incorrect Flowspec ad. Its Mississauga data center reportedly sent an incorrect Flowspec announcement, preventing the company's BGP routes from taking root.

As CenturyLink's incorrect Flowspec command caused some of the routers in its network to fail, some of these routers also began announcing incorrect BGP routes to other nearby "tier 1" Internet services. This caused other networks to fall into a domino effect.

CenturyLink solved the problem by taking the unprecedented step of telling all other "Tier 1" ISPs to disconnect and ignore all traffic coming from its network. Companies rarely make these kinds of decisions because it results in a total loss of connectivity for all their customers.

As a result, the ISP had to reset all equipment and start with clean BGP routing tables, a process that took nearly seven hours, the company said.

 Read the article

Source : ZDNet

The executive's discourse seems to have evolved over the summer on the issue of digital planning. The future recovery plan will not forget fiber since the plan will provide additional funds to support areas where some 3 million lines remain to be financed.

This financial boost is part of a more ambitious project, outlined by Cédric O: moving towards a "universal service" for fiber.

The first piece of information delivered by the Secretary of State for the Digital Transition and Electronic Communications: the subsidy window for public fiber deployment projects is going to be replenished.

Until now, the government has refused to go beyond 280 million euros in subsidies, when both local authorities and manufacturers calculated total needs at 680 million euros. 680 million. Last May, in a letter sent to the executive, local authority associations warned that "a reassessment of this envelope will have to be studied in light of the financial situation of local authorities, the higher deployment costs associated with health measures and the higher than expected number of catches to be deployed".

Unveiled next week, the recovery plan will provide more details on the effort the government is prepared to make on this specific point.

Additional funds to generalize fiber, yes, but "with the ambition to move towards the logic that fiber must be an essential service," added Cédric O. The government seems to be aligning itself with a request made by local authorities, since this would allow "professionals in the sector to continue to ensure the deployment and operation of fixed and mobile networks in the event of a crisis". It would also provide an opportunity to remove certain obstacles to deployment, such as access to common areas to fiber the risers of buildings.

If the idea of making fiber an essential infrastructure met with the reservations of the former Minister of the City and Housing - in charge of the THD dossier - this is however what the executive wants to work towards today: "we want to work on the notion of universal service," indeed added Cédric O. A project that could start as early as this fall, when the European Electronic Communications Code is transposed into French law. "This should enable us to extend the concept of universal service to include fiber coverage of the territory," the Secretary of State for Digital Affairs added.

 Read the article

Source : DegroupNews

Rezopole will meet you on September 24th for a videoconference dedicated to the improvement of BtoB Internet exchanges thanks to LyonIX and GrenobliX infrastructures.

Details will be detailed during this videoconference:
- the IXP part, which improves Internet exchanges between users in a territory, reduces telecom costs, and secures and optimizes the network thanks to the multiple routes offered.
- the NAP part, which provides connected members with direct access to the operators present and their offers. We buy or sell any type of Telecom service with great flexibility.

On the agenda

• General presentation of Rezopole
• What is an IXP/NAP?
  • How does it work?
  • Economic & technical advantages
• LyonIX & GrenoblIX infrastructures
  • Rezopole members
  • Offers & services
  • Connection solutions
• Rezopole Events & Tools
• Questions & Answers

Useful information

• Schedule from 9:30 to 11:00 a.m.
• Link of the videoconference sent by email a few days before the event

 Register

The social network has just announced that it has developed a robot capable of winding optical fiber on medium-voltage power lines, in partnership with ULC Robotics. The cost would thus be three to five times lower than the traditional aerial construction operated by the players in the sector.

Karthik Yogeeswaran, wireless systems engineer at Facebook Connectivity, believes that the complexity of fiber deployment is hindering the global adoption of ultra high-speed broadband. So this innovation could make a big difference in a large part of the developing world, but also in countries with very large territories.

"The idea of using electricity infrastructure first came to us after seeing the ubiquitous power grid infrastructure as we travelled through rural Africa. ...with its long transmission lines usually suspended from high lattice towers, power transmission networks perform a function similar to that of an internet backbone, connecting generation sites to substations."

Facebook's innovation is expected to prove decisive as it will reduce the manual deployment of optical fibre on medium-voltage lines. The robot is capable of continuing the deployment on live lines while overcoming the obstacles it encounters in order to minimize disruptions to electrical services.

However, the robot must be light enough to be supported by these medium voltage lines. The amount of optical fiber that it can carry with it is therefore limited. To get around this difficulty, Facebook has modified the size of the cable used.

"While traditional aerial fiber deployment involves heavy machinery, coil carts, large coils and large teams, a fiber deployment team deploying our solution will consist of two or three power line installers and a van with a few kilometers of fiber coils, a robot and a few accessories, which will allow many teams to work in parallel", says Karthik Yogeeswaran.

In developing countries, Facebook estimates that the total cost of deploying a very high-speed network, including the labour needed to operate the robot, would be between 2 and 3 dollars per metre. The US giant explains that "by reducing the total cost of aerial deployment of the fibre, we hope our system will have a significant impact on Internet penetration, especially in the half of the world that earns less than $5.50 a day",

While this innovation should not be used in France, it should help to improve the adoption of very high speed broadband in many parts of the world.

 Read the article

Source : ZDNet

The French National Digital Council (CNNum) has just published 50 measures for "a national and European agenda on responsible digital". The objective is to place digital technology at the service of the ecological and solidarity transition.

In this roadmap on the environment and digital, measure 7 aims to limit the environmental footprint of the deployment of digital networks and infrastructures. The CNNum intends to "encourage packages with limited consumption, including on fixed lines".

The ambition of this measure is thus to put in place "more sober" network and infrastructure design methodologies in order to adapt traffic to the "real needs of the user".

But will such limitations really be accepted by Internet users and Internet service providers? Unlimited access has become commonplace and it seems difficult to turn back the clock...

Last June, the Senate proposed banning unlimited data plans to reduce France's carbon footprint. This measure is also controversial.

 Read the article

Source : Le Journal du Geek

For 18 months now, the Association of Local Authorities for Digital Technology Avicca, the federation of industrialists InfraNum and the France THD Mission have been working on the overhaul of the Grace THD data exchange format. A revised and corrected "v3" that will become the future standard for public fibre optic networks.

The promises of Grace THD V3: "the harmonisation and standardisation of data exchange practices between private and public players" are one of the conditions for "industrialising deployments". In order to meet the objectives of the France THD Plan, the ambition is to return as soon as possible to 2019 production rates.

This common frame of reference also aims at enabling local authorities to constitute a reliable and exploitable base for their public initiative networks.

A recommendation of the France THD Plan, accompanied by an application guide, will help promote the adoption of this model. Thus, "the France THD Mission recommends to all local authorities to migrate to GraceTHD v3" in the operational phase. While in the deployment phase, "the migration will be decided by the local authority under the aegis of the MTHD, after consultation with the local and national private stakeholders concerned".

 Read the article

Source : DegroupNews

During the Covid19 crisis, digital technology demonstrated its full potential by enabling us to continue some of our daily activities but also to provide better patient care.

However, companies in the sector are no less impacted by the crisis: 1 in 2 company managers are faced with requests for price renegotiations from their customers.

Questioned in the Syntec Numérique barometer, 80% of company directors anticipate an average drop in their forecast turnover of almost 20% over the second quarter of 2020. This estimate can be explained by the decrease in order intake forecasts from April to June 2020, which concerns 96% of respondents.

In an open letter also signed by TECH IN France, France Fintech and the Alliance Industrie du Futur, Syntec Numérique calls for massive investment by public authorities in the technologies and industry of the future (industrial internet, AI, 5G, robotisation...).

With the aim of accelerating the digitisation of the State and local authorities, these major technological projects are part of public procurement. The digital transformation of companies, and more particularly in industry, will require a massive effort to support productive investment. But also to place greater emphasis on education and training in these new methods and technologies.

A plan to better digitalise health, public services, administrations, schools and businesses while providing technical solutions to societal and environmental challenges.

The survey conducted by Syntec Numérique was sent online from 20 May to 1 June 2020 with 166 respondents. A panel of respondents including all professions and all sizes of companies. The distribution of the sample corresponds to the orders of magnitude of the digital sector represented by the union.

 Read the article

Source : Datacenter Magazine

Rezopole will meet you on July 2nd for a videoconference dedicated to the improvement of BtoB Internet exchanges thanks to LyonIX infrastructures.

Details will be detailed during this videoconference:
- the IXP part, which improves Internet exchanges between users in a territory, reduces telecom costs, and secures and optimizes the network thanks to the multiple routes offered.
- the NAP part, which provides connected members with direct access to the operators present and their offers. We buy or sell any type of Telecom service with great flexibility.

On the agenda

• General presentation of Rezopole
• What is an IXP/NAP?
  • How does it work?
  • Economic & technical advantages
• Rezopole's infrastructures & members
  • Offers & services
  • Connection solutions
• Rezopole Events & Tools
• Questions and Answers

Useful information

• Schedule from 9:30 to 11:00 a.m.
• Link of the videoconference sent by email a few days before the event

 Register

With the containment of a large part of France in April, a majority of web groups set new audience records. Indeed, according to Médiamétrie//Netratings' barometer over the month, French people spent an average of 3 hours a day surfing the Internet. That's an increase of 46% compared to April 2019.

Unsurprisingly, the French media benefited greatly from this renewed attention. While there are five French media groups in the top 10, the Amaury group continues to fall in this period of sporting lull.

During the month of April, 74% of French people surfed the Internet daily. This represents a total of 46.4 million Internet users, 1.5 million more than a year earlier. They also spent more time on each screen. This increase is particularly visible on mobile phones, with daily surfing time per French person reaching 1h52, an increase of 47% compared to April 2019.

 Read the article

Source : Journal du Net

 "This text is written in Covid-19 confinement, which shows the enormous impact of the Internet in our daily lives, and its importance in helping us to continue our activities in telework or tele-education.

Exchange nodes such as those managed by Rezopole have a very important role in these periods of increased traffic. The first 100 Gbps client was set up on LyonIX at the very beginning of the Covid-19 crisis.

Looking back at 2019, the following highlights, detailed in the report, are worth noting:

• Migration of the core network to a new, latest-generation 100 Gb infrastructure,
• Securing links (redundancy) and BGP routing,
• Opening of new POPs related to their potential for new members,
• Reinforcement of the interconnection with the Swiss IXPs (CIXP & SwissIX),
• Survey on Telecom needs in the Alps with local players,
• First 24/7 BGP outsourcing services.

The IXP market is transforming towards increased service provision, and Rezopole will continue its transformation in 2020 to adapt to this evolution.

Thank you for your interest in our activities, I hope you enjoy reading. »

Philippe Duby,

President of the Rezopole Association

 Read the report

More numerous, larger, French data centers or data centers in French have become a crucial issue for the development of the Internet. It is a physical place where various computer equipment, such as computers, servers, etc., are grouped together.

The main function of a data center is to store information that is useful for the proper functioning of a company. Depending on its size, the power of its storage systems, and other characteristics, it can store billions of pieces of data on customers, individuals, etc.

A large part of the world's data centers, today offered by Cisco, Jerlaure, Sigma, etc., are dedicated to hosting the servers used for browsing the Internet. In order to protect the data stored in these particular locations, all are subject to a high level of security.

In order for a data center to function optimally, certain conditions must be met, such as: excellent air conditioning, air quality control, emergency and backup power supply, 24-hour surveillance, etc.

 Read the article

Source : Journal du Net