On 2 September, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled in two German cases concerning "zero tariff" offers by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The Court ruled that this practice is contrary to the EU regulation on open Internet access, for the second time in a year.

A "zero tariff" is the practice of an ISP to make free the volume of data consumed via a partner application.

In this case the CJEU points to the additional option, Stream On, offered by Telekom Deutschland to its users. Vodafone, on the other hand, offers a myriad of options under the name Vodafone Pass, which are only valid in Germany. The data consumed by the applications concerned are only taken into account when they are consumed from abroad.

Maryant Fernández Pérez, head of digital policy at the European consumer protection organisation BEUC said "When companies like Vodafone use these zero tariffs, they are essentially locking consumers in and limiting what the internet can offer them,. "Zero tariffs" are detrimental to consumer choice, competition, innovation, media diversity and freedom of information".

It also welcomed the Court's ruling that "such a commercial practice is contrary to the general obligation of equal treatment of traffic, without discrimination or interference, as required by the Open Internet Access Regulation".

The German Federal Network Agency, which filed the complaint together with a consumer association, believes that the offers "cannot be maintained in their current form". Vodafone Germany said it is "carefully examining the decisions and will update its current offer if necessary in accordance with the judgments".

The ruling is based on the EU net neutrality regulation, which was passed in 2015 and came into force in 2016. The text was criticised at the time for its weakness. The US Federal Communication Commission had taken a much stronger measure on the same subject the year of the European vote, clearly prohibiting "zero rating".

Since then, the situation has ironically been reversed. The Trump administration repealed the net neutrality measure, which his successor is trying to reinstate. In Europe, the CJEU clarified its position in September 2020 via its ruling on the offers of the operator Telenor. A decision confirmed today.

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Source : Siècle Digital

Most countries started their migration to the new IPv6 protocol several months ago. This transition is essential to cope with the IPv4 address shortage that has been predicted for many years. The most recent ranking showing the IPv6 adoption rate by Google users puts India in the lead with 61.67%. Malaysia and French Guiana are second and third respectively.

France is in fourth place with 48.38% followed by Taiwan with an adoption rate of 48.0%. The United States has an adoption rate of 47.5%. Canada ranks only 20th with an adoption rate of 36.59% and the UK ranks 24th with 33.27%.

IP (Internet Protocol) addresses are a kind of license plate that allow Internet users to surf the web. Without these IP addresses, we would not be able to access the web. Each time we open an account, an Internet box for our home, or a subscription for a mobile phone, we are assigned a unique IP address. The IPv4 protocol is reaching saturation point.

Existing since 1983, this protocol is limited to 4.3 billion IP addresses worldwide, including 83 million for France. At the end of June 2020, French telecommunication operators had already allocated nearly 95% of IPv4 addresses. This is why a switch to IPv6 was necessary. IPv6 is also considered to be much more secure, faster and more powerful than its predecessor. Above all, this protocol offers many more IP addresses.

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Source : Siècle Digital

In the Wall Street Journal the company decided to talk about this disproportionate operation, called "Simba". Very few details have so far been revealed about the project. We only know that it would be connected to existing access points, particularly on some beaches on the east, north and west coasts.

Surrounding Africa with a gigantic submarine fibre optic cable would allow almost the entire population to enjoy the Internet. Facebook knows that to extend, it must absolutely attack this continent inhabited by more than 1.2 billion people and which is not yet very well connected to the rest of the world. This is due to infrastructure that is still under development and completely uncovered areas. So if several million Africans could connect to the Internet tomorrow and create a Facebook, WhatsApp or Instagram account, the social network would save a lot of users in a very short time.

However, there would not yet be a signed agreement for the installation of this huge cable. And this is not the first time Facebook has talked about installing an underwater cable to connect the world. Facebook was pulling a transatlantic cable over 6,500 kilometers long, Marea, in 2017 with the help of Microsoft. The installation began in 2016 and provided a stable connection in 2018 by connecting Virginia Beach, United States to Bilbao, Spain.

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Source : Siècle Digital