Vodafone leaves public internet exchange points
Vodafone is withdrawing from peering at public internet exchange points. Fees must be paid for private peering. It starts in Germany.
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Network operator Vodafone will operate less network and is completely withdrawing from public peering, i.e. interconnection with other internet providers and backbone operators at neutral locations. This means Vodafone is also withdrawing from the leading German internet exchange point, DE-CIX. Vodafone is keeping existing direct interconnections with large streamers and hyperscalers. Otherwise, it is outsourcing all peering to a private provider.
As Vodafone announced, that private provider is Inter.link GmbH from Berlin. Vodafone expects lower latencies, more resilience, and cost savings from this step. For peering partners who do not yet work with Interlink, the changes mean additional effort. Furthermore, they will have to pay fees from now on, which depend on the amount of data exchanged. This is unusual for public peering at neutral locations, but Vodafone has already been charging for private peering.
Vodafone has informed heise online that not all private peering agreements will be discontinued after all. Existing direct connections with major streaming services such as YouTube and hyperscalers, i.e., large cloud operators, will remain in place. The first paragraph has been amended accordingly. This does not change the abolition of public peering agreements.
Deutsche Telekom is also doing this, reportedly at significantly higher rates. Although Telekom is still present at a few neutral exchange points, its operations there are restricted. Several consumer protection organizations accuse Deutsche Telekom of being a "network brake" and of having created artificial bottlenecks at the access points to its network. In April, they filed a complaint with the German Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur, BNetzA).
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Vodafone's German peering is to be completely switched over in 2025, with other group countries to follow next year. Interlink's German connection points are located in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Munich, DĂĽsseldorf, Nuremberg, and Stuttgart. The company also has network connections in Austria, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Croatia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Spain, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, as well as in the US state of Virginia.
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