How Deutsche Telekom Throttles Its Own Customers

Why your 1 Gbps fiber line crawls at dial-up speeds during peak hours, and what the AS3320 peering war means for German internet users.

How Deutsche Telekom Throttles Its Own Customers

Update (February 2026): There are indications that Cloudflare is intentionally routing DTAG traffic through congested paths and may be deliberately letting certain interconnection links saturate. Paid Cloudflare plans appear to get better routing than free tier domains. I'm still investigating and will update accordingly. That said, packet loss within the Telekom network remains a widespread issue beyond just Cloudflare.

The operational practices of Autonomous System 3320 (AS3320), operated by Deutsche Telekom (DTAG), have long been a subject of technical and regulatory scrutiny. While most Tier 1 carriers utilize settlement-free peering to maintain global reachability, DTAG's restrictive interconnection policy is increasingly viewed by network engineers and digital rights advocates as a "terminating monopoly" strategy.

The Tier 1 Gatekeeper Logic

As a Tier 1 carrier, AS3320 does not purchase transit but relies exclusively on peering to reach the Default-Free Zone (DFZ). However, DTAG controls the "last mile" for approximately 15.2 million broadband customers in Germany, giving them a 40.3% market share in the fixed-line segment.

Because these users are only reachable via AS3320, DTAG enforces a strict traffic ratio requirement (maximum 1:1.8). In the current internet ecosystem, where "eyeball networks" typically see an inbound-to-outbound ratio of 5.6:1, this requirement is technically difficult to meet for content providers without shifting to a paid peering (commercial transit) model.

Strategic Congestion: The "Telekom Playbook"

Standard network engineering dictates that interconnection capacity should be expanded once a link reaches 70% peak utilization to prevent packet loss during bursts. Critics allege that DTAG systematically ignores this standard for partners who refuse to pay premium interconnection fees—which are reported to be 20 to 30 times higher than market transit rates.

This results in a predictable technical degradation for the end-user:

  • Port Saturation: Links hit 100% capacity during evening peak hours.
  • Packet Loss and Jitter: Congestion leads to significant packet drops (reports of up to 80% in extreme cases) and increased latency.
  • Routing Inefficiency: Traffic is often "hairpinned" through distant nodes (e.g., Stockholm or New York) to avoid saturated direct peering points in Frankfurt or Munich.

Cloudflare as a Focal Point

The impact is particularly severe for services utilizing Cloudflare. As Cloudflare serves as a critical Content Delivery Network (CDN) for a vast portion of the modern web, these bottlenecks affect more than just entertainment.

  • Professional Workflows: Developers experience failed git clone commands from GitHub or extreme slowdowns when pulling images from Dockerhub.
  • AI and Productivity: Tools like OpenAI (ChatGPT), Canva, and Notion frequently time out or load incorrectly due to the congestion at the AS3320-Cloudflare handoff.
  • Public Services: Even access to the German Research Network (DFN) and the Deutsche Bahn website has been reportedly degraded due to these peering disputes.

The VPN Diagnostic

The efficacy of using a VPN serves as technical proof that the issue resides at the network boundary. By tunneling traffic, the data enters the AS3320 network via a different ingress point—typically one where the VPN's upstream provider has a paid, high-capacity agreement with DTAG. The immediate restoration of nominal bandwidth via VPN confirms that the bottleneck is not the user's physical line, but a specific, managed interconnection point.

Case Study: Deutsche Telekom vs. Meta

The peering dispute escalated into open legal warfare in 2024. Meta had been connected to Deutsche Telekom via dedicated interconnectors, paying approximately €5.8 million annually for this direct access. When the contract came up for renewal, Meta refused to renew but continued using the same infrastructure.

Deutsche Telekom sued, and in May 2024, the Regional Court of Cologne ruled in DTAG's favor, ordering Meta to pay a double-digit million sum (reportedly €20 million). Rather than comply, Meta announced the end of its peering relationship with Deutsche Telekom entirely, shifting to more expensive third-party transit providers—a move that degrades performance for German users but avoids paying what Meta considers extortionate fees.

Cloudflare's Position: Against Network Fees

Cloudflare has been vocal in opposing the "Fair Share" model that DTAG and other European telcos are pushing for. Their arguments:

  • It favors Big Tech: Only large corporations can afford premium peering fees. Smaller content providers and startups would be relegated to slower, congested transit routes—creating the very "two-tier internet" that net neutrality was designed to prevent.

  • Costs will be passed to consumers: Higher interconnection fees don't disappear; they get passed down to end users through higher subscription costs for services.

  • Content providers already contribute: Tech companies invest hundreds of billions annually in content creation and network infrastructure (caches, CDN nodes) that actually reduce the load on ISP networks by delivering data closer to the edge.

  • It's not standard practice: Only 0.0004% of global peering connections require fees. Settlement-free peering is the overwhelming norm because it benefits both parties.

  • The "restaurant analogy": Customers already pay ISPs for internet access. Charging content providers again is like paying for a meal at a restaurant, but then the chef has to pay the waiter extra to serve it.

Cloudflare maintains an open peering policy, peering with over 12,000 networks worldwide on a settlement-free basis. DTAG's policy is listed as "Restrictive" on PeeringDB.

Deutsche Telekom's Position: "Fair Share"

Deutsche Telekom frames the debate differently. In their June 2024 position paper to the European Commission, they argue:

  • Unsustainable traffic growth: With annual data growth rates of 25-50%, the current model where "prices for data transport services are marginal to zero" is untenable. Traffic growth cannot be monetized despite increasing infrastructure costs.

  • Content providers are "freeloading": Large tech companies generate massive amounts of traffic without contributing to network maintenance and expansion costs.

  • Legal validation: The Cologne court ruling against Meta confirms that "telecom operators can demand payment for a valuable data transport service."

  • Power imbalance: CEO Timotheus Höttges has characterized this as a question of "whether the strongest players will dominate the internet or whether there will be a fair balance between all participants."

Deutsche Telekom argues that the time for regulation is now, before more disputes arise, and has been pushing the EU to act on "Fair Share" legislation.

Regulatory Developments: 2025/2026

In April 2025, a coalition including epicenter.works, the Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF), and the vzbv filed a formal complaint with the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur). They argue that DTAG's practices violate EU Net Neutrality (Regulation 2015/2120) by creating "paid fast lanes".

Simultaneously, the EU's Digital Networks Act (DNA) 2026 has introduced a "voluntary conciliation mechanism". While presented as a way to resolve interconnection disputes, critics fear this could provide a "backdoor" for institutionalizing network fees, potentially weakening existing net neutrality safeguards by allowing dominant ISPs to monetize congestion.

Notably, a 2022 study by the Bundesnetzagentur concluded that imposing "fair contribution" fees could negatively impact consumers. German Digital Minister Volker Wissing stated he does not support such market intervention and that the "free and open internet" must be protected.

The Bottom Line

For IT professionals and corporate users, AS3320 represents an environment where connectivity quality is determined as much by commercial negotiation as by technical capacity. As long as this "interconnection as a profit center" model persists, the "Netzbremse" (network brake) remains a structural reality of the German internet landscape.

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