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Meta has ended the direct peering partnership with T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom and is instead using public criticism to challenge €20 million in fees it supposedly owes.
Meta’s German subsidiary is ending its direct peering relationship DeutscheTelekom (DT) after talks to negotiate a recent payment conflict fell through. Meta argued DT is “putting the open internet at risk and undermining net neutrality principles.” Meanwhile, DT, which also owns T-Mobile, has accused Meta of “twisting facts.”
The conflict stems from Meta’s non-payment of dues to Deutsche Telekom towards peering, a technology that allows two major networks to exchange data directly without routing restrictions. The technology essentially allowed DT’s users access to Meta’s services, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, with lower latency. Naturally, this came at an extra cost, and Meta paid roughly €5.8 million annually, German media outlet Golem previously noted.
Meta reportedly demanded a 40% concession in fees in 2020, but the German telco offered only 16%. As a result, the partnership, which was originally instituted in 2010, fell through. Meta stopped paying by November 2020. DT subsequently sued Meta in December 2022, and the Cologne Regional Court ruled in the DT’s favor in May 2024, ordering Meta to pay €20 million due in contract fees. The court, instead of commenting on whether this violates the European Union’s regulations on net neutrality, treated this as a case of disobeyed contract terms as Meta continued to use the services even without paying for them.
The topic of whether selectively increasing speeds for certain services actually violates net neutrality warrants a longer discussion. One thing is clear: while DT is expected to offer access to online services to all consumers without biases, the same rules do not apply to Meta, which can engage in select peering agreements with other operators and therefore hurt DT’s business.
Notably, the German federal networks regulator Bundesnetzagentur says that net neutrality is defined as treating all network traffic “equally (or neutrally), irrespective of the content, application, service, sender and receiver.” While there are no specific guidelines on peering agreements from the EU or the German regulator, a 100-plus-page report commissioned by the latter ruled that large content providers and telecom or internet service providers benefit mutually from paid peering. Part of the benefits are passed onto the consumers who can enjoy premium plans for cheaper as a result of content providers paying operators.
In this particular case, the court upheld mutual benefits while noting that Meta has a dominant share of Germany’s social media and communications channels, which overshadows DT’s sizable market share.
In its latest statement, Meta reiterated its previous statements that Deutsche Telekom was putting its services behind a “de facto paywall” and restricting subscribers from accessing services freely. The operator, however, noted it had “created sufficient capacity to handle the data traffic for the new transfer points” and “done everything in our power to ensure that our customers can continue to use all of Meta’s services in the usual quality.”
“Meta is once again abusing its overwhelming bargaining power to discredit legitimate concerns of the European telecommunications industry and consumers in order to avoid fair payment,” the operator said. Meanwhile, Meta continues to insist that it invested €27 billion worldwide to reduce costs for telecom operators, and DT also benefits from them.
The implications of this dispute have yet to be chalked out, and may end up with escalation to a higher court. More importantly, it leads to open discussions about the imperfect net neutrality regulations in the EU, which may form the basis for the proposed Digital Networks Act in the region.
