==> Our press release in German: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WSAmAQRBsdllyMMq7_FIeuE_-630ETL2 Translated with www.DeepL.com Init7 wins peering case against Swisscom Federal Administrative Court overturns ComCom decision On 22 April 2020, the Federal Administrative Court (BVGER) handed down a landmark decision in the IP interconnection ("peering") proceedings of Init7 against Swisscom, which have been ongoing since 2013, which confirms the validity of the complainant Init7. Init7 demanded that Swisscom continue a peering agreement concluded in 2011 on a zero-settlement basis (i.e. each partner bears its own costs). Swisscom had terminated this contract in 2012 and, undermining the "polluter pays" principle and the telecommunications law obligation to grant cost-oriented prices, demanded massively excessive compensation for peering from Init7. Init7 defended itself against this. In its judgement, based on several expert opinions of the Competition Commission (WEKO), the BVGER came to the conclusion that Swisscom was dominant - quote: "The respondent has a technical monopoly for access to its end customers". The court thus overturned the decision of the ComCom lower instance and ruled in favour of Init7 . ComCom must now set the cost-oriented price for peering. As with voice interconnection, this price for peering will be zero or close to zero. This means that Swisscom's additional demand of CHF 550,000 to Init7 is off the table. Init7 will also save the procedural costs of CHF 126,400 still imposed on it by the previous instance. The Federal Administrative Court's remarks are primarily relevant to an illegal cartel which Swisscom operated together with Deutsche Telekom (DTAG) until January 2016. It was ended thanks to the proceedings of Init7 under pressure from the WEKO after a preliminary investigation. The cartel enabled Swisscom to participate financially in the IP transit capacity sold by DTAG (revenue share). However, the ruling has a more far-reaching effect: In future, it will no longer be possible for providers with a strong market position and many broadband customers to artificially increase the price of IP interconnection through competitive agreements and to make it more difficult for smaller providers to access their customer base. The ruling is therefore significant in the fight for an open and discriminatory free Internet and should have an impact beyond Switzerland. This too, because it shows the telecom regulators once again that their laissez-faire attitude is out of place vis-à-vis providers with market power in the area of peering. The text of the judgement can be downloaded here (PDF, 42 pages, 31.7 MByte). https://drive.google.com/open?id=13nMQkj1abja-3cPBiQWiZaybsFIUkWa5 Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) -- Fredy Künzler Init7 (Switzerland) Ltd. Technoparkstrasse 5 CH-8406 Winterthur https://www.init7.net/