 Hello, I'm Lucas LaSotta and welcome to my presentation Net Neutrality and Free Software, The Case of Router Freedom in Europe. I work as a deputy legal coordinator at the Free Software Foundation in Europe. Today I will introduce you to an important topic concerning your freedom to choose and use your own router in Europe. But first, let me thank the FOSTEM organizers for their hard work in making this event happen. I am also very grateful to the policy and legal dev room managers for the opportunity to talk about this fundamental topic of our digital freedom. This is the second time I am allowed to talk about router freedom at FOSTEM, so I hope you like, learn and help us in our path to liberate our routers. This talk aims to contextualize router freedom as an essential principle of net neutrality. In order to do so, first we needed to understand what is net neutrality and how the freedom to choose our internet equipment fits into the European legal framework. In the first part of this talk, we will learn the legal dispositions in the European Union and the principles composing what is today called net neutrality. Then we will briefly discuss why free software is the enabling component of router freedom, allowing users to explore and the maximum of the configuration of their equipment, choosing the best solution for performance, security and data protection. In a higher level, free software and router freedom foster competition and sustainability in the internet equipment markets. We will also quickly check the work that FSFE has been doing in the last decade to protect and promote end users' rights and sovereignty when connecting to the internet. However, not everything is a seed of flowers. If the router freedom was completely out of danger, this talk wouldn't have any sense. In fact, several hurdles are threatening end users' ability to use their routers in the EU. As we will see, ISP internet service providers are the ones who have no interest in allowing their customers using private routers. Besides, loopholders in the national implementation of net neutrality rules may create impossible hurdles for users to get their equipment working. Last, but not least, the national authorities responsible for enforcing net neutrality in the EU member states have a bad history in monitoring abusive behavior, which does not help protecting the interests of end users against unfair commercial practices of internet services providers. Therefore, there's a lot to do and you can take part on it. The last part of the presentation, you'll learn how to contribute to our work and how to get involved. So let's get started and discover how net neutrality and router freedom are interestingly connected. Net neutrality represents the latest phase of the debate over control communications media in the broader context of digital transformation of social life through the internet. As we all know, the internet evolved from a limited state-controlled project to the largest computer network in the world encompassing not only information exchange alone, but also a sophisticated multidisciplinary network for human interaction, communication, data processing and storage, and control of digital infrastructure. In the sense, access to the internet has become a central prerequisite for individuals exerting rights and freedoms in the information society. Net neutrality is a regulatory principle intended to protect the basic rights of internet users against opaque and invidious practices by their ISPs. As we can see in the image, today net neutrality rules in the European Union are addressed to companies providing less-than-mile access to end users. The European Net Neutrality Regulation enshrines users' rights to access and distribute information and content online. But it applies only to ISPs that are only linked in the internet access chain. The ability to access the internet and provide content relies on a much larger chain in which other stakeholders also play an important role. As we can see also in this graphic prepared by the French National Regulatory Agency, net neutrality is only the beginning stage of an open internet. Open internet means how freely the information can flow in internet and how content and service providers can compete for consumers' attention in a fair and transparent way. The internet is a colliery of the fact that the web is open, but more and more applications used in devices are proprietary, therefore closed. By its turn, net neutrality is about commercial treatment of consumers by network operators and the risk of discriminatory practices. That means, in general terms, no throttling, no blocking of rival content, and no discrimination of users, content, platforms, applications, type of equipment, source address, destination addresses, or method of communication, except under narrowly defined conditions. Well, net neutrality is all about non-discrimination. Network operators are not allowed to enforce discriminatory treatment on consumers. Net neutrality has a strong political factor due its impact on freedom to access online services, information, and online speech. It requires, therefore, strong monitoring and enforcement by regulators to protect and promote transparency and traffic management. As it occurs with free software, it is possible to say that net neutrality is composed by four principles. ISPs are not allowed to impose commercial practices that hinder end users' freedom of content, freedom of application, freedom of services, and freedom of devices. Net neutrality enables equitable access to information and helps prevent unfair and discriminatory prices practices. It is important factor in the freedom of speech protection, net neutrality principles, promote competition and innovation on digital markets. Router freedom, therefore, represents the hardware layer of the four freedoms, ensuring end users to attach their devices to connect as they want to the internet. It applies to mobile phones when users use their smartphones as hotspot modems or other routing equipment to connect to their internet as DSL, cable, fiber, or even satellite connections. In the EU, net neutrality legislation is the result of a decade of public debates in the EU and the US. The original four freedoms were proposed in the beginning of 2000s, in the work of North American legal scholars like Thien Vu and Lawrence Lessig, to serve as grounds for regulatory principles and to set minimal standards for network operators in relation to their consumers. The four freedoms were formalized as a regulatory policy in the US, firstly in 2005, and entered in public debates in the European Union during the reform of telecommunications law in 2009. The legislative process on European level took several years in which civil society stakeholders fought to keep the law language to protect the four freedoms. The result was the open internet regulation in 2015, representing a compromise between end users' rights and the interests of big network operators. Router Freedom is explicitly mentioned in Article 3.1 of Regulation EU 2015-21-20 as a composing principle of net neutrality. End users shall have the right to access and distribute information and content, use and provide application and services, and use terminal equipment of their choice irrespective from the end users or provide the location of the location, origin or destination of the information, content application or service via their internet access service. Nonetheless, as we will see, the implementation of national rules on the network termination point imposes serious dangers for end users' rights. Depending on how EU member states will define the point where ISPs network ends and the limits of end users' premise, Router Freedom can be a vague promise rather than guarantee for internet users in Europe. But now that we have learned about Router Freedom and net neutrality, let's check why FreeSofter is the enabled component of Router Freedom. It should go without saying that in our society, we should be able to freely choose a technical device for use in our homes like we are free to choose what mobile phone we want to buy. The whole internet traffic, encryption, backups, communication, shopping, writings, business interaction and so on are transferred through our routers. In the COVID-19 pandemic, even our work traffic has been dependent on our wrong routers. Users that decide not to employ their ISP equipment and use their own private routers shall have the ability to extract the maximum performance of their equipment. There are countless FreeSofter Linux BISD distribution available for routers, with some of them as the OpenWRT offering large number of optional packages in its repositories. Users can configure routers operating systems in countless different ways. Freedom of choice is therefore facilitated by FreeSofter. Security is also a strong argument for router freedom. FreeSofter enables switch through reaction to security flaws, allowing users to upgrade and reconfigure their own router software. The large FreeSofter community turns router operating system resistant to vulnerabilities different from most ISP models which commercialize few routers and promote proprietary software, putting their customers in danger. But this particular problematic when manufacturers and providers are very slow in the lever of critical updates and users are not allowed to perform updates themselves. Privacy and data protection are enhanced by more robust security. Well, competition and sustainability of router markets are greatly expanded with FreeSofter. Users profit from the free competition that guarantees free choice and steady improvement of products. The lack of competition would eventually come at the cost of the user because security features would be continually reduced and the user friend lens would drop. This goes even further. If a user is forced to use a router, the ISP is only one step apart from supporting only one SIP provider or one cloud storage, one dynamic DNS provider or one mid-streaming platform and so on. Moreover, some ISP imposed to use specific models forced them to acquire only compatible hardware. From the consumer and the environmental point of view, this is unfavorable due to the building up of electronic waste even though the device would still work. FreeSofter therefore allows all devices to be supported long after the manufacturer stops making updates. The FSFE has spotted early on the necessity to include router freedom in the public agenda in 2013 when debates on net neutrality swept Europe. The long experience in this cause produced extraordinary milestones like the promulgation of a dedicated law in Germany, the so-called router law in 2016, which guarantees end users the right of free choice of personal routers and moderns. The last two years have marked the changing the focus of FSFE work. We expanded our advocacy to the European level, leveraging the debate to other countries in this critical moment of national implementation of net neutrality rules. For example, in 2020, BEREC explicitly recognized several arguments raised by FSFE, setting standards for the location of the network termination point in the position that is favorable to end users. We will talk about that in a minute. Well, nevertheless, there is still a lot to be done. Router freedom isn't a reality in many European countries yet. And even in those countries where laws have been passed, new rules manage changing the regulatory framework and taking away from end users the right to use their own equipment and hardware. Let's talk about that now. In the context of the reform of European telecommunications law, EU member states must implement in their national jurisdictions the so-called European Electronic Communications Code, directive AU 2018-1972, which brings some rules concerning router freedom. The new law requires from national regulatory agencies to define in their jurisdictions the network termination point, a demarcation limit at which the ISP network ends and connects with the customer's on-premises equipment. Equivalent to the telephony, the network termination point varies between countries and may change over time. In order to complement the technical aspects of implementing net neutrality in Europe, BEREC, the communications regulator in Europe, was tasked to provide guidelines on the definition of the network termination point in several topologies. According to BEREC, the MTP can be determined according to three positions as we can see in the screen. The points A, B and C. The FSF took part in public consultation in 2019 and strongly argued against any position that could damage the ability of end-users to employ their equipment to connect to the internet. Point A is the only acceptable option. BEREC acknowledged the argument and confirmed point A as default, but even so, allowed RNAs, it means national regulatory agencies, to determine the MTP on other positions under some criteria that is called the technological necessity. Just to clarify, point A, both router and modem would belong to users. In point B, only router, but modem would belong to ISP. In point C, both modem and router would belong to ISP. Allowing NRAs to decide the location of the MTP based on technological necessity opens a dangerous precedent for discretionary and abusive interpretation of the BEREC guidelines. While such necessity to establish the NTP on point C would be hard to prove, political and economic influence could easily override the high thresholds for these necessities in order to have at least the modem at ISP's premises at point B, and thereby cause more serious harm to the router freedom of users. Besides, the decision by the NRAs to determine the technological necessity would be hard to counteract, perhaps only through judicial channels. The second hurdle against router freedom is the bad monetary by NRAs of ISP unfair practices against router freedom and net neutrality in general. NRAs have been extremely conservative in applying penalties against net neutrality violations. Even worse, some countries, like Ireland and Portugal, have completely failed to establish sanctions against non-compliant ISP to date. Other NRAs have set their fines at very low amounts, which certainly will not hinder ISPs from violating router freedom again. Therefore, router freedom could be easily violated by ISP without any effective counteraction by NRAs. Last but not least, ISP are very creative in forcing the routers on customers, creating barriers that can completely block router freedom. We call these software barriers when ISP do not prevent customers by contractual means from using their private routers, nor deny vital information for the router configuration, for example, logging data, but otherwise try to persuade customers not to use their own routers with unscrupulous arguments. In many cases, this is sufficient to scare people away from router freedom. Sometimes, even worse, ISPs push the limits and create hard barriers for customers. For example, ISP impose contractual limitations, do not provide necessary logging data, or completely refuse to provide technical support. But notwithstanding the difficulties in getting router freedom a working reality in Europe, we are confident that we can make a change and secure end-users' right to personal routers. The FSV will continue monitoring the new developments of router freedom in Europe closely. The new guidelines on NTP will have to be enforced by NRAs of 27 different countries, which will certainly lead to a lot of discrepancies. This kind of long-term engagement is only enabled by your help. And here is how you can participate. Well, first, contact your ISP in your region, in our country. Ask if you can use your own router and tell me the results. Send me an email at lucas.lasot at fsve.org. Pretty straightforward, isn't it? And this way, we can understand better the situation on EU member states and to develop strategies against ISP commercial practices and also to denounce this kind of treatment to the national regulatory agencies. In the end, please consider also a donation to enable the FSV work. I thank you very much for your attention, and I hope that we can discuss right now if you have some questions. Some legal information, though. The slides are licensed under Creative Common License, BISA 4.0, unless stated otherwise. Photocredits, EcoGrid, Victor Garcia, and James Street on Unsplash. The router-sensual models was taken from TORi's website. Thank you very much.