Further to a complaint received in September 2012 from the consumer association UFC-QUE CHOISIR, the ARCEP launched an administrative enquiry to clarify the technical and financial terms governing IP traffic routing between FREE and internet companies.

This enquiry allowed the ARCEP to yield the following observations.

Firstly, FREE’s interconnection capacities, as any other ISP’s capacities, in a context of permanent growth of bandwith-hungry applications, are congested at peak hours.

Secondly, this congestion mainly results from the dimensioning of FREE’s links with transit companies as well as FREE and YOUTUBE’s owner GOOGLE peering agreement.

The ARCEP however noted in its decision that “the congestion observed at peak hours impacts the whole internet traffic in transit from and towards FREE’s network, without any distinction based on the type of content, its origin or its destination”.

The ARCEP concluded that it found no discriminatory practice towards GOOGLE or any type of provider of public online communication services (PPOCS) in the light of the principles of net neutrality.

The regulatory authority also underlined that this particular enquiry confirmed the importance and usefulness of the systems it has put in place to monitor IP traffic routing issues i.e:
-    the process for gathering information on the technical and pricing terms governing data conveyance and interconnection (See the ARCEP’s decision n°2012-0366 issued on 29 March 2012) ;
-    the process for gathering information on the quality of fixed internet access services (See the ARCEP’s decision n° 2013-0004 issued on 29 January 2013).

The ARCEP’s decision n°2013-0987 rendered on 19 July 2013 is available here.