has led some activist hosting providers to refuse to comply with these obligations<fnref n="5" />. But of course, such a stance
creates legal risks, and is questionable. These are complex, but very concrete ethical and tactical questions that
CNs must be able to raise, debate and arbitrate while respecting their democratic governance features. There
is a need to define processes by which participants to a network commons, as members of a CN are, come to
minimal agreements about which stance should be adopted, and how organizations that differ from the majority
can preserve their autonomy while still being part of the movement, etc.

This example regarding contradictory legal interpretations speaks to the broader issue of debating and prioritiz-
ing strategies. We have found that often times, these issues are arbitrated by a small circle of leaders, and by not
extending these circles to a wider set of participants, CNs and their allies might miss out on very useful insight
from the community, or fail to spark greater participation from the community, or act in a way that might be
seen as lacking legitimacy. This is why, whether at the local, national or European levels, decision-making pro-
cesses and avenues for participation will need to be streamlined for discussing political advocacy and litigation
Where they do not exist, CN will need to create spaces for defining these issues.

This can ensure that the right priorities are set, that these can be acted upon effectively through practical
advocacy tactics. As CNs work towards political advocacy, two preliminary things are of particular importance.
One is to have established contact channels with policy-makers, for instance at the local or national levels.
Who are the people that matter for telecom policy in a given context and who are those that can be turned
into allies? Once they are identified, asking for a meeting is a good way to establish a sustainable contact
channel with them, and that will facilitate any future advocacy work. Another important issue is to allow the
community can come up with the best political frames to share with partners and the general public, for instance
by developing effective public narratives with analogies (like the “organic” Internet<fnref n="6" />), by gathering numbers
and documentations on the impact of CN. All this material will be crucial in ensuring the success of advocacy
strategies. National and European gatherings of the CN movement in Europe, like the Battlemesh summit, the
Chaos Computer Congress and other similar event are appropriate spaces for nurturing these discussions, and
actually they have been increasingly used for that purpose in recent years.

4.2.3. Foster coordination and nurture partnerships among CNs and their allies to influence EU policy

The discussion in Sec. 4.2.2 leads to another important question. Building internal skills might be enough to
engage in policy-making in front of local authorities, which of course can be key in providing CNs with the
legitimacy and resources to scale up their projects locally. But at the national and European level, effectively
engaging in sustained political advocacy will require creating better coordination between communities. Tack-
ling “methodological nationalism” in activism and advocacy seems as important as it is for researchers (Scheel
et al. 2016).

In this regard, the open letter of March 2016 and the setting up of the Telecommunications mailing-list gathering all
members active and/or interested by policy in European CNs was a first step. But it is one for which CNs relied
on external partners (netCommons in particular) rather than an endogenous process. Now coordination already
exists at some levels. Lists like the Battlemesh mailing list act as a tool for exchanging news and organizing
joint events and collaborating on technical aspects. Bilateral exchanges between CNs from different countries
has also long been a core component of the movement's dynamism. Finally, forms of transnational cooper-
ation have also emerged through academic and Internet governance fora. But for discussing telecom policy
and circulating knowledge about policy and legal stakes in an open and transparent manner so that newcomers
can join the discussion, for deciding on common priorities and coordinating joint campaigns, for documenting
past advocacy campaigns and reflexively analyzing them so that lessons can be drawn and advocacy capacities
improved overtime, there is virtually nothing. Even at the national level, these forms of coordination are some-

<footnote n="5">⁵Réquisition sur Mamot.fr : LQDN s'en tient aux droits fondamentaux (2017). URL: https://www.laquadrature.net/fr/requisition_mamot.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶Panayotis Antoniadis (2017). *How to build a more organic internet (and stand up to corporations)*. URL: http://theconversation.com/how-to-build-a-more-organic-internet-and-stand-up-to-corporations-70815.</footnote>
times lacking, with the exception of the German network of organizations and the coalition around Freifunk providing analysis of legal cases and cross-posting them on various websites.

This lack of coordination is not necessarily specific to CNs. Even among various branches of “digital rights activism”, many groups in Europe feel like more could be done to foster commons actions. In the field of digital rights litigation for instance, the coordination is emergent, and was catalyzed by funding from the Open Society Foundation with the help of the London-based non-profit Privacy International. Together, since 2015, they have organized meetings, conducted reports and interviews in the field and decided to put together a new organization specifically dedicated to fostering such coordination and to funding specific cases. Besides this organizational innovation that provide structures for coordination, however, another initiative was the creation of a closed mailing-list were people from various groups working on strategic litigation across Europe can share insights, ask questions, request collaboration.

The political and legal defense of CNs has no specific institution or communication channel in Europe. So the first step is to create an avenue for discussion. netCommons, worked with La Quadrature du Net in March 2016 to create a mailing list–entitled “Telecommons”–to which all the signatories of the open letter of March 2016 subscribed. This is a first step in terms of coordination: We now have a large group of people from CNs and other non-profit organizations whom we know are interested in the topic. Among them, some have strong legal and policy skills as well as experiences in mounting advocacy campaigns. Since then, netCommons has kept on working with La Quadrature du Net to follow-up on the open letter by documenting the legislative process on the Electronic Code of Communication (with briefs summarizing stakes and amendments which are presented in annex), and will continue to do so.

This process is driven by a group of four to five people based in France; it is not a collective bottom-up and autonomous endeavor by CNs themselves. It is a first step for which more work is needed so that CNs can take the matter into their own hands. So in the coming months, netCommons will continue to engage in a dialogue with key communities studied and accompanied by the project, not only to find ways to make our three-year long research project useful in the long-run for existing and potential CNs, but also to make the movement more visible and organized politically.

The key question to avoid the creation of a new irrelevant structure (e.g., a new IGF for CNs), however, is to ensure that people who are already mobilized in the day-to-day operation of CNs and who often do so as volunteers will be able to invest time in these discussions. Or, put differently, there is a need to ensure that these new coordination channels will be used and remain dynamic. The growing number of people mobilized in favor of this movement might be enough, but this is something that need to be carefully debated and thought through based on the experience of CN practitioners: What would do they expect from greater collaboration? What would they like to share with CNs in other countries? What would they want to learn? Is Europe the right perimeter? If so, how do we articulate European advocacy with ongoing initiatives at the international level?

Once we have reached an agreement on the need, we will address the question of the right tools for sustaining such coordination. This might be a communication channel attached to an online space with basic information about the CN movement in Europe, a place for storing and sharing resources, debating both technical and political aspects. Until now, the Telecommons mailing-list has not lived up to its potential for coordination (it is mostly used for disseminating announcements and calling for signatures, and usually by non-CN groups). But maybe it is simply the wrong tool. A lot of non-profit and activist organizations, convinced that mailing-lists are a sub-optimal coordination tool, are currently adopting discourse.org, a free-software, forum-like platform that is simple yet flexible enough to avoid information overload while allowing for meaningful discussions. Would that be a better tool for organizing coordination at various levels (national, European, international)?

Finally, another crucial question is whether advocacy capacities for European CNs need to be professionalized, i.e., whether there is a need and the possibility of hiring a small staff dedicated to coordinating advocacy at the European level, which means also being able to relay national and local campaigns or even organize pan-European mobilization. Following the model of non-profits dedicated to the knowledge commons like the Wikimedia Foundation or Communia international association on the digital public domain, which are sharing
an advocate based in Brussels, but also NGOs like the Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue, European CNs could decide to create an organization representing them at the European level, and staffed with one or two mutualized policy officers based in Brussels.

What would be the role of this staff acting as the lead political advocates of EU CNs? They could track legislation, respond to consultations, meet various stakeholders at the European Commission, the EU Parliament or institutions like the European Committee of the Regions, liaise with other Brussels-based digital rights, telecom, and consumer organizations, and organize advocacy campaigns. This would be an interesting way to build greater expertise on the complex public-private assemblages taking place in Brussels where most of European telecom policy is made, and intervene more adequately in the policy-making process. The priority of this dedicated staff would be to build knowledge on telecom regulation, and in particular its most economic aspects, which are largely under-covered by civil society actors (besides consumer organizations whose focus is narrower than that of CNs). For issues of importance to CNs, but for which advocacy capacities already exist in civil society (for instance on data retention), it would join and relay actions conducted by others, and in particular digital rights NGOs like EDRi, or ISOC, trying to identify the potential contribution of CNs to this efforts.

Another potential solution is to push existing organizations advocating for rights and commons-based infrastructures in the digital realm to cover these issues. This is what La Quadrature du Net is starting to do in France, working closely with the Fédération FDN and netCommons researchers on the Telecoms Package. In Germany, Digitale Gesellschaft is playing a similar role with Freifunk. At the European level, the Brussels-based EDRi<fnref n="7" /> would be a more natural candidate to coordinate the European defense of CNs.

The question, of course, is how to fund this extra staff. Again, that is a question for CNs to answer. Would it be possible that European CNs accept to pool a very small fraction of their revenues to provide funding for it? Would foundations historically associated with the defense of digital rights, like the Open Society Foundation, be willing to channel funds for the defense of Community Networks? Again, this is something that will need to be discussed in the months to come, and on which netCommons will report at the end of the project (e.g. in D4.3).

#### 4.2.4. Team up with the pro-Commons movement and nurture intersectionality

Beyond the internal coordination mechanisms that still need to be strengthened, there is a lot of potential for CNs to partner with groups that operate in a totally different realm, albeit with the same democratic values, similar end-goals and like-minded approaches. In this respect, as should be clear by now, one of the most promising avenue for a coalition and the framing of a narrative is the commons. In this respect, community farming, movements fighting for the urban commons and many others are natural partners for CNs. At the local level, that means partnering with groups and institutions who share similar concepts in resource management, local empowerment and self-reliance, and these alliances are already taking place, especially in Spain or in Germany, where Freifunk has for instance partnered with churches and museums. They might be a need to develop and share strategies that can deepen these connections, for instance by organizing “local Commons Assembly.”

According to Michel Bauwens:

> "Assemblies of the Commons are local or affinity-based association of citizens and commoners, bringing together all those who contribute and maintain common goods, material or immaterial. It is based on a social charter outlining the shared values and/or practices. An Assembly of the Commons can formulate policy proposals that enhance civic infrastructures for the commons, address and influence authorities or self-organize toward meaningful actions. These can range from town and village, to bioregional, national or continental levels, and are closely connected to the

<footnote n="7">⁷https://edri.org/</footnote>
*Chambers of the Commons*<fnref n="8" />

The first scale where these can be organized is the local level, where re-building civic power and citizen agency is most important to build-up resilience in our economies. Then, these can be set up nationally.

At the European level, such alliances between CNs and pro-Commons movement are starting to take shape. Since 2016, netCommons researchers have helped bring recognition of CNs as an integral component of the Commons movement along with CNs like Guifi, in particular through its participation to the European Commons Assembly. If European CNs manage to engage in coordinated action at the EU level, it will be key for them to engage with these growing networks devoted to the defense of commons-based resources.

The risk of coordinating with other partners is that political differences might prevent from finding a common ground, and to consume scarce human resources which could have more impact if used elsewhere (e.g., to scale the network). Joint mobilizations on a specific topic will allow to identify potential allies and build trust. Learning from experiences of coalitions in other fields can also be useful: environmental organizations, libraries for copyright reform, have been successful. An example of distributed political action is the adoption of a treaty challenging for the first time the dominant established vision of copyright by right-holders to protect rights of the more vulnerable (Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled), through the continuous pressure of an heterogeneous coalition (Rosnay 2016).

## 4.3. Summary of recommendations

### 4.3.1. Build internal, shared legal and policy skills

* Identify and/or recruit people that can follow policy development and offer advice to the rest of the community.

- Reach out to local law faculties, especially those who already have—or are interesting in setting up—legal clinics or providing internships.

- Organize the circulation of expertise between CNs, academia and NGOs, for instance on the model of academic fellowships.

* Identify the legal rules applicable to CNs and following major policy decisions that affect their activity, whether it is at the international, European, national or local levels.

* Allow for reciprocal exchange between participants focused on the technical operation of the network and those with legal skills.

* Organize internal events to train the community on legal issues, offering guidelines on good practices to comply with the legal framework.

* Educate CNs participants and the public by writing on major policy developments affecting the life of a CN (whether it is on telecom regulation, data retention, surveillance laws, etc.).

* Organize public events that can increase awareness across various audiences, especially in the legal profession, about the hurdles faced by commons-based initiatives.

* Document campaign actions, interactions with policy-makers, framing and repertoires used during mobilizations so that these can be replicated by others, and/or become part of reflexive learning process.

### 4.3.2. Develop open processes for arbitrating, prioritizing and enacting legal and policy strategies

* Identifying legal vacuums and other policy issues and hurdles affecting the development of a CN.

<footnote n="8">⁸See: http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Assembly_of_the_Commons.</footnote>
* Discuss the concrete ethical and tactical questions facing CNs, for instance between different possible interpretations of the law, or of case laws.

* If a consensus cannot be reached, find minimal agreements about which stance should be adopted, and how organizations that differ from the majority can preserve their autonomy while still being part of the movement.

* Ensure that there are processes in place to allow all interested participants to join the discussions on policy, so that those enacting the shared priorities will have more insight and legitimacy.

* Identify key policy-makers at the local or national level and ask for a meeting, where your policy agenda and needs will be presented.

* Develop effective public narratives with analogies (like the “organic” Internet) and document the impact of CNs.

### 4.3.3. Foster coordination and nurture partnerships among CNs to influence EU policy

* Engage in a process of setting up new coordination mechanisms at the EU level

* In doing so, address the following questions:

- What do we expect from greater collaboration?

- What would we like to share with CNs in other countries? What would they want to learn?

- How do we articulate European advocacy with ongoing initiatives at the national international levels?

* Decide whether advocacy capacities for European CNs need to be professionalized. While doing so, address the following questions:

- What would be the role of this staff acting as the lead political advocates of EU CNs?

- How to fund this extra staff?

* Reach out to allies in digital activism, develop shared strategies the European level.

### 4.3.4. Team up with the pro-Commons movement and nurture intersectionality

* Nurture partnerships with movements focused on local empowerment and self-reliance.

* Act at the local level where re-building civic power is most urgent to ensure the resilience of our economies.

* Find pro-Commons organizations at the national level and reach out to them.

* Continue integration at the European level with the European Commons Assembly

* Explore what joint mobilizations can be organized to act together, build trust and gain recognition by policy-makers.

* Reach out to other coalitions in other fields (e.g. environment, organic agriculture, fablabs, local farming) and learn from their experience.
# 5. Conclusions

We started this Deliverable underlining the importance for CNs to develop advocacy capacities and find a common voice to ensure their long-term sustainability and help them develop their activities. In light of this goal, we studied and documented specific cases where leading CNs in Europe engaged in advocacy, oftentimes with the help of other activist organizations. In Chapter 4, finally, we highlighted some of the opportunities for building advocacy capacities, and made a few recommendations to go about that task.

As we have stressed, this Task 1.3 work, reported in this Deliverable, is the beginning phase of a process that will last till the end of the project, and we hope also beyond it. In the coming months, in part through our efforts regarding governance and legal analysis (WP4), we will continue to work with CNs to help them advance their advocacy capacities, informed by the research we have conducted and positive feedback received so far, so as to ensure the long-term relevance of our work for the development of CNs in Europe. While doing so, we need to remember that building advocacy capacities, especially in a policy area like telecommunications, is a long-term process, and we need to lay the foundations for long-term social awareness and action, rather than search for immediate results. Looking for quick fixes and short-term results or one-size fits it all recommendations is likely to miss the mark.

While we will strive to be useful, we will also need to pay constant attention to the value-systems and methods of the CNs we interact with, ensure that the knowledge we have built can be disseminated and acquired by members of the communities we work with, allowing them to understand each other and progressively build a collective culture. Fostering tans-national coordination is important, but we also need to remember that local communities are the ones that matter most; that they are the ones that this coordination process is to serve, and that advocacy capacities need to be able to channel their needs and demands, thus also at local scales and in local languages, rather than bypass them altogether.

## 5.1. Contribution to netCommons goals

The work carried out in Task 1.3 ‘Advocacy capacity-building: Maximize the impact on the policy maker’ contributed to achieve netCommons sustainability goals in the following ways:

**CNs knowledge on policy is uneven.** The deliverable explains why advocacy is key to ensure legal sustainability and growth for CNs, and how CNs can contribute reforming telecom policy.

**CNs lack of human resources and time to lead advocacy efforts.** This deliverable surveys examples of advocacy tools and practices of CNs so that efforts may become more effective even with limited resources and get greater leverage at the local, national and European levels. It also presents models of collaborations with other civil society initiatives on the commons and digital rights fields in order to mutualize forces and develop long-term partnerships.

**CNs lack of experience with policy-makers.** The deliverable provides recommendations to gather legal analytic skills required to perform work similar to Task 4.1. It also develop governance internal processes proposed in Task 1.2 to define underlying political values prior to developing policy positions to contribute to the legal framework key questions identified in Task 4.1, and developing or improving decision-making processes for these.

**Policy-makers are not aware of CNs.** The work led during this task contributed to raise awareness on the commons-based alternative models and values carried by CNs to all MEPs involved in telecommunications law reform; also UNESCO indicators on Internet Universality never considered the existence of
CNs, but thanks to the contacts created by netCommons, they are likely to contain relevant indicators for the well-being of CNs, as well as considering the presence and good health of CNs as positive indicators of Internet Universality.

## 5.2. Impact of the work

Besides contributing to achieve the scientific, societal and policy goals of netCommons, Task 1.3 had, and will continue to have, a direct impact on CNs advocacy organizational improvement by providing feedback and support to CNs to improve their advocacy capabilities (O1.3).

We have:

* Documented existing advocacy efforts and collaborations;

* Worked with CNs to document and report their previous experiences of advocacy so they can be shared among CNs;

* Initiated a mailing-list dedicated to the legal defense of CNs, Telecommons;

* Identified the policy conditions to make an Alternative Internet possible;

* Written an Open Letter to raise awareness on CNs legal sustainability issues;

* Contributed to the Telecom Package legal reform by producing notes analyzing key amendments and making voting recommendations, and by that, proposed normative changes and helped policy-makers to support policies that can foster a sustainable Internet;

* Organized a workshop in the European Parliament to raise awareness of CNs legal issues and societal impact of providing a fairer ICT ecosystem;

* Have representatives of 3 CNs to discuss with 3 MEPs, and receive feedback on how to improve advocacy framing and practices for more efficiency;

* Developed a collaboration with the European Commons Assembly;

* Initiates a collaboration with UNESCO Freedom of Expression (FOE) section.
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# A. Open Letter to EU Policy-Makers — Policy Recommendations for sustaining Community Networks (March 2017)

## Preamble

We represent European Community Networks, a growing movement of organizations that operate local communication infrastructures, sometimes federated at the regional or national levels. These networks, most of which also provide access to the global Internet, are operated as a commons. That is, rather than being driven by for-profit motives, our key focus is on providing connectivity while striving for democratic governance, social inclusion, education, and human rights with respect to communication technologies.

Our organizations vary considerably in terms of sizes, types of network infrastructures and political cultures. Yet, despite this diversity, we are united by the common objective to build networks that meet the communication needs of humans (rather than those of objects and machines), through networks that are built and run by our communities, for our communities, focused on local empowerment, affordability and resiliency.

Today, we collectively provide broadband connectivity not only to tens of thousands of individual European citizens and residents in rural or urban settings, but also to organizations including small and medium sized companies, schools, healthcare centers, social projects and many more. In many cases, we have out-competed mainstream operators, by providing cheaper and faster Internet connectivity than incumbent players. Thanks to our infrastructures and through our various activities, we foster scientific and engineering experiments, we help local hosting and service providers come together to mutualise investments and share costs, we support digital literacy and data sovereignty through workshops and other educational activities.

Yet, despite our achievements, policy-makers at the national and European levels have so far mostly neglected our existence and specific regulatory needs. Worse, regulation is often hampering our initiatives, making the work of our participants and volunteers harder than it should be. This is why, as you start working on a European code of electronic communications, we decided to contact you and voice our ideas and recommendations regarding the future of the legal and policy framework regulating our activities.

## 1. Lifting unnecessary regulatory and financial burdens

We first ask you to review the regulatory framework and get rid of unnecessary regulatory burdens, such as fees or red-tape that are unnecessary or illegitimate when imposed on small non-profit entities. In Belgium for instance, the registration fee that telecom operators must pay to the NRA is at 676€ for the first registration, plus 557€ every following year (for those whose revenues are below 1M€, which is the case for many community networks). Even such small fees can hinder the growth of small networks that efficiently serve tens of households. In France, Spain and Germany, it is free, which might explain why the community network movement is much more dynamic in these countries. The proposed code for electronic communications aims to harmonize procedures for declaration fees (first registration) as well as administrative charges (annual fees). EU lawmakers must ensure that the fees and charges imposed by national NRAs are null or negligible for non-profit ISPs and reasonable and proportionate for micro and small businesses. Likewise, taxes designed for large corporate firms in the telecom sectors should not apply to smaller, non-profit operators.

## 2. Getting rid of third-party liability when sharing Internet access

Several laws seek to prevent the sharing of Internet connections amongst several users by making people responsible (and potentially liable) for all communication made through their Wi-Fi connection, and create legal risks for people sharing their connection. In Germany, rights-holders have used a "secondary liability" doctrine
to chill the growth of the community networks movement. In France too, copyright law imposes a secondary
liability regime that creates significant legal uncertainty for people sharing their network connections with other
users. The so-called "mere conduit", inscribed in EU law since 2000 in the directive on information society
services, needs to be guaranteed and expanded to small-area wireless access points. In the same spirit, contract
clauses that forbid subscribers to share their connections with others should be prohibited. Promoting a right to
share Internet connections is all the more vital considering the economic and ecological crises, as well as the
rapid increase of populations that cannot afford access to the Internet. In this context, connection sharing can
play a critical role in fostering a more equitable and sustainable use of telecommunications infrastructure.

3. Expanding the spectrum commons

It is not just Internet wireless access points that can be shared, but also the intangible infrastructure on which radio signals travel. Wi-Fi, as an unlicensed portion of the spectrum and therefore a commons, is a key asset for community networks willing to set up affordable and flexible last-mile infrastructure. However, these Wi-Fi frequency bands are currently very limited. Not only are they getting increasingly subject to congestion in densely populated areas, they are also exposed to new technical standards that use the so-called ISM frequency band (like LTE-U) that hamper the reliability of Wi-Fi communications. Last but not least, existing frequency bands for Wi-Fi (5,6 Ghz and 2,4 Ghz) have physical constraints that prevent them for being used for longer radio links. In the face of such challenges, a new approach to spectrum policy is needed. Policy-makers should expand unlicensed Wi-Fi bands. Other types of frequencies should also be made available either on an unlicensed (preferred scenario) or, if not possible, based on affordable and flexible authorization schemes. Such frequency bands for instance include so-called white spaces in lower frequencies (which allow for cheap and resilient long-distance links), as well as the 12Ghz and the 60Ghz bands (for which radio equipment is affordable and which can help us build high-bandwidth point-to-point radio links). Once made accessible to community networks, they can help roll-out and expand cheap and resilient wireless infrastructures.

4. Updating open-access rules in telecom infrastructures

Networks built with taxpayers money should also be treated as a commons and, as such, remain free from cor-
corate capture. Today, their management and exploitation is often delegated by public authorities to corporate
network operators. These entities usually adopt aggressive pricing schemes designed for incumbent players
that make it extremely costly for small access providers to interconnect with these networks. Access to these
publicly-funded networks for non-profit entities like community networks as well as small businesses should
be guaranteed, at a reasonable and proportionate cost. Similarly, community networks often cannot have access
to the private local infrastructures of incumbent players, despite the fact that these are the only way to connect
willing subscribers. Indeed, in many European markets, the deployment of optical fiber networks is (re)creating
monopolistic conditions on local loops through pricing schemes which preclude small actors from accessing
these private networks. Policy-makers and regulators should ensure that every area is covered by at least one
telecom operator with a so-called "bitstream" offer affordable for smaller players.

5. Protecting free software and user freedom in radio equipment

In 2014, the European Union adopted Directive 2014/53 on radio equipment. Although the Directive pursues
sound policy goals, it might actually impair the development of community networks. Indeed, community
networks usually need to replace the software included by the manufacturer in radio hardware with free and
open source software especially designed to suit their needs, a collective process that improves security and
encourages the recycling of hardware, among other benefits. Article 3.3(i) of the said Directive creates legal
pressure for manufacturers of radio devices to ensure the compliance of the software loaded on these devices
with the European regulatory framework. As a result, there is a strong incentive for manufacturers to lock down
their devices and prevent third-party modifications of the hardware. We therefore ask policy-makers to provide
a general exception for all free software installed on radio devices by end-users and operators (the latter being
liable if their software lead to violations of the regulatory framework), so that users' rights are safeguarded.

6. Abrogating blanket data retention obligations

Community networks strive to safeguard human rights in communication networks, and in particular the right

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /></figure>
to privacy and the confidentiality of communication. While we welcome recent rulings by the Court of Justice of the European Union holding that indiscriminate retention of metadata violates the Charter of Fundamental Rights, we are concerned about several member states' willingness to circumvent these rulings to protect capabilities for indiscriminate surveillance. As EU lawmakers start discussing the overhaul of the ePrivacy Directive, we call on them to oppose any blanket data retention obligations and close existing loopholes in EU law to ensure that only targeted and limited retention obligations can be imposed on hosting and access providers.

## 7. Bringing direct and targeted public support

Countless other policy initiatives can help support community networks and the significant associated benefits they bring. Such policies include small grants, crowd-funding and subsidies to help our groups buy servers and radio equipment, communicate around their initiative, giving them access to public infrastructures (for instance, the roof of a public building to install an antenna), but also to support their research on radio transmission, routing methods, software or encryption. As many local authorities have found, supporting community networks is a sound policy option. As EU lawmakers move forward on the WiFi4EU initiative, we would like to remind you that we have pioneered various models for the provision of free public access points. We believe that public money invested in this initiative should primarily go to groups pursuing a bottom-up logic, seeding local groups that can foster the empowerment and cohesion of local communities, nurture competition, and meet the same policy-objectives at a fraction of the cost that would be charged by mainstream telecom operators.

## 8. Opening the policy-making process to Community Networks

Although we have often partnered with municipalities and local public authorities, we ask that national and European regulators pay more attention to our activities when drafting regulation. Community networks have both the expertise and legitimacy to take an integral part in technical and legal debates over broadband policy in which traditional, commercial ISPs are over-represented. Community networks can bring an informed view to these debates, allowing for a policy-making process more attuned to the public interest.

We thank you for your attention and very much look forward to engaging with you on these important issues,

### First signatories

(EU-based community networks)

020wireless (Netherlands)

AIL-Network (France)

Alsace Réseau Neutre (France)

Aquilenet (France)

Association Ribaguifi - Eresué 2.0 (Spain)

Asoc. SevillaGuifi (Spain)

Common Net (Italy)

FAImaison (France)

FDN (France)

FFDN (France)

Franciliens.net (France)

Freifunk.net (Germany)

Fundació guifi.net (Spain)

Funkfeuer (Austria)

Grenode (France)

Grifon (France)

Ilico (France)
Illyse (France)

Iloth (France)

Neutrinet (Belgium)

Ninux.org (Italy)

Open Network in Croatia (Croatia)

Progetto Neco (Italy)

Progetto Wireco Ciminna (Italy)

Rézine (France)

Sarantaporo.gr NPO (Greece)

SCANI (France)

Tetaneutral.net (France)

Tourraine Data Network (France)

Wireless België (Belgium)

Wireless Leiden (Netherlands)

WirelessPT.net (Portugal)

Wlan slovenija (Slovenia)

**Supporting organizations**

(signing in support of the general approach and/or specific
proposals put forward in the letter)

ApTI (Romania)

ARTICLE 19 (UK)

Bits of Freedom (Netherlands)

BlueLink.net - Civic Action Network (Bulgaria)

Brazilian Association of Digital Radio (Brazil)

Chaos Computer Club (Germany)

Chaos Computer Club Lëtzebuerg (Luxemburg)

Colnodo (Colombia)

Common Ground (Germany)

Commons Network (EU)

Dugnadsnett (Norway)

EDRi (EU)

EFF (US)

Electronic Frontier Norway (Norway)

epicenter.works (Austria)

Free Knowledge Institute (Netherlands)

Free Software Foundation Europe (EU)

Frënn vun der Ënn (Luxemburg)

GreenNet (UK)

hackAIR (EU)

Initiative für Netzfreiheit (Austria)

Instituto Bem Estar Brasi (Brazil)
Instituto Nupef (Brazil)

La Quadrature du Net (France)

MAZI (EU)

netCommons (EU)

netHood (Switzerland)

Network Bogotá (Colombia)

NEXTLEAP (EU)

NURPA (Belgium)

Nuvem (Brazil)

One World Platform (Bosnia Herzegovina)

Open Rights Group (UK)

Open Technologies Alliance- GFOSS (Greece)

P2P Foundation (Netherlands)

P2P Lab (Greece)

PIE News Project (EU)

Project Arig (Israel)

Rhizomatica (Mexico)

Renewable Freedom Foundation (Germany)

VECAM (France)

Xnet (Spain)

Zenzeleni Networks (South Africa)
# B. Notes on the European Electronic Communications Code (May 2017)

## 1. Enhancing data protection

Articles 40, 93

### Data protection, a core value of Community Networks (CNs)

In Europe, Community Networks (CNs) are a growing movement of organizations that operate local communication infrastructures, sometimes federated at the regional or national levels. These networks, most of which also provide access to the global Internet, are operated as a commons. That is, rather than being driven by for-profit motives, their key focus is on providing connectivity while striving for democratic governance, social inclusion, education, and human rights with respect to communication technologies.

As such, one of their core values is to protect the privacy of their users and not to process their personal data for business purpose or any other purpose not necessary for the provision of their services.

### Obstacles faced by community networks

Governments of numerous Member States intend to abolish users' freedom to encrypt their communications. Furthermore, they have lately adopted several laws strengthening the powers of intelligence services to intercept communications and to monitor networks for purposes such as protecting national economical health or the detection of minor crimes or simple misconducts.

In the same spirit, and in breach of the Charter of Fundamental Rights (as clearly interpreted last winter by the Court of Justice of the European Union in its Tele2 case), many Member States are refusing to revoke or review their national laws which require telecommunication operators to retain traffic data of all their subscribers.

All of these issues directly and drastically impact CNs' activities, by preventing them from implementing policies that fulfill one of their core social values.

### Amendments

#### IMCO

Amendments 377 and 378 should be adopted as they would make end-to-end encryption mandatory for inter-personal communication service providers (such as mail and chat).

Amendment 530 should be adopted as it would explicitly force Member States to comply with the Tele2 case of the European Court of Justice.

#### ITRE

Amendments 565, 566, 567 and 568 should be adopted as they would make end-to-end encryption mandatory for providers of interpersonal communication services.

Amendment 1099 should be adopted as it would provide a framework anchored in fundamental rights for the interception of communications by competent national authorities.

## 2. Fostering the development of wireless community networks

Articles 2, 55, 95

### Freifunk, a wireless community network

Freifunk is a German community network whose members are single-handedly installing and maintaining free networks, using their own Freifunk firmware on off-the-shelf wireless (WiFi) devices and routers. Every member of the network configures his or her router to relay the traffic of other participants to the Freifunk
network. In return, he or she can also transmit data, such as text, music and movies through the network or use services setup by participants. Many members also share their Internet access and allow others to use it to access the World Wide Web and other internet services.

In 2013, there were 40.000 Freifunk relays all over Germany and neighbouring countries and, given the coverage achieved in Berlin, more than 350,000 people can have access to the network. Since the provision of free Internet for all is part of Freifunk core identity, its network is essential for many communities, such as underprivileged individuals.

Finally, based on user-driven networks, services and usages, Freifunk depends on perpetual innovation through, for instance, the development of new communication protocols that any other operators or companies may freely used to provide innovative services all over the EU.

## Obstacles faced by Freifunk

Several national laws seek to prevent the sharing of Internet connections amongst several users by making people liable for all the communications made through their Wi-Fi connection. In 2017, two German courts have found individuals sharing their Wi-Fi connection liable for copyright infringements committed by other users. They were found liable because, despite having been warned by rights-holders about such infringements, they did not take measures to stop those infringements and to prevent new ones.

Such liability is a major threat for Freifunk members and a clear distortion of competition since 'traditional' Internet access providers cannot be liable for infringements committed by their users, even if they are aware of them, as provided by article 12 of Directive 2000/31/EC ('Directive on electronic commerce').

Furthermore, while they do not benefit from the same liability regime as professional providers, CNs are subject to the same strict obligations. Some of these obligations are clearly unjustified and disproportionate where imposed on individuals.

Finally, two practical obstacles may prevent individuals from sharing their Internet connection. Firstly, router manufacturers may prevent users from loading into their devices customized software necessary for maintaining free and open wireless networks (such as those developed by Freifunk). Users' ability to use Free Software in order to regain control over their devices is also threatened by ambiguous language in the Directive 2014/53 on radio equipment. Secondly, Internet access contracts may directly forbid subscribers to share their connections with others, or charge them for doing so.

## Amendments

Article 55 of the proposed Code intends to foster the development of wireless community networks but fails to address the obstacles underlined above.

### IMCO

Amendment **68 should be rejected** as it would hinder the development of community networks by making the community liable for the actions carried-out by end-users.

Amendments **408 and 409 should be adopted** as they would explicitly extend the protective liability regime of Internet access providers to individuals sharing their Wi-Fi connection.

Amendment **411 should be adopted** as it would allow members of Community Networks to install Free Software (software that can be freely used, studied, modified and shared as such) onto their wireless devices, which is a prerequisite and standard practice in wireless networks.

Amendment **566 should be rejected** as it would have the opposite effect.

### ITRE

Amendments **298, 316 and 333 should be adopted** as they would exclude individuals sharing their Wi-Fi connection from the scope of obligations imposed on professional providers, thereby fostering the development of wireless community networks.

Amendments **702, 703 and 706 should be adopted** as they would explicitly extend the protective liability regime of Internet access providers to individuals sharing their Wi-Fi connection.
Amendments **708 and 710 should be rejected** as they would remove the provisions giving end-users the rights to access wireless networks of their choice and to share their own access with other uses.

Amendments **712 and 713 should be adopted** as they would not allow Internet access provider to charge users in case they want to share their Wi-Fi connection.

**3. Promoting a shared and unlicenced spectrum**

Articles 4, 18, 45, 46, 49

**Tetaneutral, a not-for-profit Internet service provider**

Tetaneutral is a not-for-profit French Internet service provider that provides connectivity for everyone, including digital exclusion areas. While fibre optic networks are costly, wireless networks are a flexible and affordable way to provide broadband wireless network to all citizens.

Through WiFi unlicensed spectrum, Tetaneutral is able to deliver symmetrical very high capacity network (up to 30 megabytes) in all areas, including where fiber is not deployed. It is a key enabler that supports the digital uptake in rural areas and spreads digital literacy. It involves users in the deployment of the network and thus empowers citizens in both urban and rural zones. To that extent, bringing connectivity to everyone crucially depends on wireless unlicenced spectrum.

**Obstacles faced by Tetaneutral**

The lack of shared (through flexible authorisation schemes) and unlicenced spectrum is an obstacle for deploying community networks. Deployment of 4G and 5G should not be an excuse to reduce or even slow the release of shared and unlicenced spectrum (supported by the European Commission), which embodies the core principle of general authorisation mechanism enshrined since 2002 in the current telecoms package. To prevent the often exagerrated risk of congestion, technical harmonisation within the EU should ensure the coexistence of both spectrum licensed through individual rights and of free spectrum.

Besides, the duration of rights to use radio spectrum shall be limited and subject to regular review in order to assess the efficiency of the use of spectrum in light of technological and market evolution, and ensure that spectrum policy continues to serve the public interest. Authorisations should be withdrawn if necessary and National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) have appropriate powers to carry out such assessments.

**Amendments**

**ITRE**

Amendment **393 should be rejected** as it aims at reducing the obligations of the Member States to develop the shared and unlicenced spectrum.

Amendment **420 should be rejected** as it aims at limiting the possibilities for Member States to add amendments to spectrum usage plan.

Amendment **603 should be adopted** as a solution for increasing the access to shared and unlicenced spectrum.

Amendments **636 and 645 should be rejected** as they would increase the number of cases where authorisations to use radio spectrum are needed, which is not an efficient way to foster innovation but would on the contrary add constraints.

Amendments **670 and 674 should be adopted** as they would enable regular reviews of the authorisations to use radio spectrum.

**4. Creating the appropriate conditions for small Internet service providers**

Articles 59, 70, 71, 72

**French Data Network, a not-for-profit Internet service provider**

French Data Network (FDN) is the oldest French Internet service provider (ISP) still operating. It exists since 1992.

FDN provides hundreds of subscribers with services that major French ISPs do not offer: it systematically provides static IP addresses (a critical condition for self-hosting), refrains from monitoring the behaviour of its
users for any commercial purpose and guarantees the neutrality of its network far beyond what is imposed by the Open Internet Regulation. FDN is a non-profit entity: it provides access to the Internet against payment, but its revenues are entirely dedicated to the development of its network and services. Its governance is open to anyone.

### Obstacles faced by FDN

As most landline ISPs, FDN has not enough funding to deploy its own cables. It has to rent access to the wired network of big operators in order to provide users with its enhanced services. It may rent two kinds of access: passive and active.

Passive access means that a provider actually rents physical cables, installs its own equipment on the network and manages every technical aspect of the access provided to users. It is usually expensive since ISPs have to rent space in each local infrastructure (thousands of euros per month for each) in order to install their equipment. Thus, passive access is more suited for providing Internet access to many users in the same area or to companies with very specific needs.

Active (also called "bitstream") access means to simply use part of a network already managed by another operator. It does not require to install equipment nor to rent space. It is much cheaper and adapted for providing Internet access to fewer users in each location. It does not give as much control as passive access but still allows ISPs such as FDN to provide the services their members and subscribers are looking for.

Regarding ADSL lines, operators are obliged to grant passive and active access to ISPs requesting so. Therefore, there are now thousands of ISPs in France that provide customized and enhanced services to individuals or SMEs through the ADSL infrastructure of a few big operators.

However, this situation is limited to ADSL: operators are free not to grant access to their fibre-optic lines at all. Since FDN and most ISPs are not in a position to deploy their own lines (nor participate in the deployment of fibre lines), they simply cannot and do not offer any fibre access to end-users.

This impedes competition drastically, limits the diversity and the quality of services provided to SMEs and individuals and is destroying the pre-existent economic fabric of small ISPs used to work with companies. Now, these companies may only rely on the four big French ISPs which are unable to provide them with services specifically fitting their needs.

### Amendments

Article 59 (symmetric regulation), 70 (access to civil engineering), 71 (general access including active) of the proposed Code intend to create obligations to grant access (active and passive) at relevant cost (article 72) but fails to address efficiently the obstacles underlined above.

### ITRE

The following amendments **should be adopted** as they would strengthen operators' obligations to grant access and NRAs' power to order them to do so: 737, 738, 743, 745, 748-752, 757, 905, 907, 908, 909, 912, 939, 940, 948, 953, 954, 959, 965-970, 974, 976, 977, 979, 980.

The following amendments **should be rejected** as they would have the opposite effect: 735, 746, 747, 889, 893, 894-900, 906, 913, 918, 924-926, 932-937, 943, 971, 984.

Amendments 917 and 923 **should be adopted** as they would specifically ensure that active access is not relegated to a minor role compared to passive access.

The following amendments **should be rejected** as they would have the opposite effects: 739, 740, 741, 742, 880, 930, 931.

## 5. Enhancing competition and addressing oligopolistic situations

Articles 61, 65, 71, 72, 74, 77

### Federation FDN, a federation of not-for-profit ISPs

The Federation FDN gathers 26 not-for-profit Internet service providers in France and Belgium. Some rely on bitstream access provided by incumbent players. Others create their own fiber-optic or wireless networks in
both urban and rural settings, in many cases bringing connectivity to "white zones".

## Obstacles faced by Federation FDN

In France, more than 1000 operators are on the ADSL market, offering connection to both individuals or companies. To some extent, this allows competition between a variety of actors, and can ensure the possibility for users to choose between several offers. While ensuring competition at a retail level, such providers also stimulate competition on wholesale markets.

But the situation on the fiber-optic local loop is very worrying: only four operators are developing this kind of infrastructures in France, which cannot be considered as the same competition conditions as for the ADSL market. Furthermore, operators are often alone in a specific area, which leads to a monopolistic situation from the end-users point of view, as they cannot choose between several operators. The root cause is that there is currently no bitstream offers allowing smaller operators or Community Networks (CNs) to use the infrastructure of the dominant players to provide their services to end-users. This situation brings national markets back to the early days of European regulation where single dominance is the rule but with several players theoretically active. Deprived of the proper regulatory incentive to remedy this situation, NRAs are not taking the necessary steps to ensure competition.

To solve these issues, the definition of "significant market power" (SMP) should be broadened, so as to include all operators having a position equivalent to dominance, including through a commercial or co-investment agreement, and be subject to an asymmetric regulation. This would ensure competition in the face of oligopolistic situations.

Also, smaller operators or Community Networks need more flexibility and less administrative burden, such as analysed by the Federation FDN within its answer to the French consultation on the land-line market. Community networks (CN) can be a solution for non competitive markets in bringing connectivity over the territory, such as observed in the scandinavian countries.

Regulatory holidays (art 74-77), limitations to symmetrical regulation (art 59.2) and amendments going further in this direction will inevitably lead to duopolistic and non-competitive situations. Thanks to access regulation, this is precisley what we have so far avoided in Europe. As the political economy of networks further concentrates, if CN are not supported (notably through bitstream access) we will step back from this situation.

## Amendments

### IMCO

Amendment 436 **should be adopted** as it deletes the provision on article 72 that would reduce the NRA regulation powers depending on the investments. The role of NRAs is not only to secure the investments of operators but to ensure a harmonious development of faster and affordable networks across territories.

Amendment 440 **should be rejected** as it aims to put the burden of proof on NRAs when they aim at regulating costs and tariffs. Due to classical asymmetry of information issues, NRAs cannot face such a burden and would deprive them of the capacity to regulate tariffs even when reasonable and not cost oriented.

Amendment 441 **should be rejected** as it aims to remove any transparency related to cost accounting system. Again, transparency is crucial when related to cost-regulation. Cross subbidies issues could not be properly addressed under such circumstances.

Amendment 442 **should be adopted** as it gives back to NRAs the capacity to appreciate how much New Network Elements shall be subject to regulation. On the contrary, automatic and potentially temporary deregulation would greatly disturb the market and impede competition.

Amendment 444 **should be rejected** as it worsens the European Commission's proposals by letting monopolistic players unregulated.

Amendment 448 **should be rejected** as it aims to put at the same regulatory level any kind of agreements among market players, and would lead without any control mechanism to raise barriers to market entry for any operators that are not part of such agreements.
Amendment **449 should be adopted** as it clarifies that co-investment agreement must have been concluded in order to be taken into account by NRAs. Assessing a mere co-investment offer is not enough to allow NRA to play its role and ensure a proper competitive dynamic.

ITRE

Amendments **793, 794, 800 and 818 should be adopted** as they would also enhance the definition of SMP and remove provisions that weaken the SMP regime.

Amendment **971 should be rejected** as it aims at securing the network investments by operators whereas the role of NRAs is to ensure a harmonious development in the territories and give to all equal access to the market and services.

Amendment **973 should be rejected** as it would worsen the oligopolisation of fiber-optic networks and thus worsen the distortion of competition. This amendment gives operators more possibilities to exclude competitors either by increasing prices or discriminating the undertakings.

Amendment **1045 should be adopted** as it removes article 77 that imposes less obligations to vertically separate undertakings. As it stands, this article would leave monopolistic players unregulated.

Amendment **1130 should be adopted** as it would enable local ISPs to participate in the investments and thus enhance connectivity and competition at the local level.
# C. EU Parliament Workshop of October 17th 2017 on Community Networking

## C.1. Programme

**Programme of the EU Parliament Workshop**
**on Community Networks and Telecom Regulation**

17 October 2017 - 9h00-12h00

Room 5G315

European Parliament - Bât. Altiero Spinelli

60, rue Wiertz - B-1047 - Bruxelles

Community Networks (CNs) are a growing movement of organizations that operate local communication infrastructures, most of which give free or affordable access to the global Internet. There are more than 150 of these organizations across the EU, currently providing broadband connectivity to tens of thousands of EU residents. These networks are operated as a commons: Rather than being driven by for-profit motives, their key focus is on providing access to telecommunications while striving for democratic governance, social inclusion, education, and human rights with respect to digital technologies.

But despite their stunning achievements, policy-makers at the national and European levels have so far mostly neglected their existence and specific regulatory needs. Worse, regulation is often hampering these initiatives, and the draft of the "European Electronic Communications Code" (EECC) risks worsening the situation. This workshop, co-sponsored by MEPs Miapetra Kumpula-Natri (S&D) and Julia Reda (Greens/EFA), gathered CN practitioners, policy-makers and researchers to discuss the way in which EU policy can help European CNs thrive.

9h00-9h15: Introductory remarks by Miapetra Kumpula-Natri (MEP, S&D) and Renato Lo Cigno (netCommons)

9h15-10h15: Assessing the work of Community Networks in light of EU broadband policy

Chair: Mélanie Dulong de Rosnay (CNRS)

* Rural areas - Leandro Navarro (UPC)

* Social inclusion - Jurgen Neumann (Freifunk)

* Education on ICT & innovation - Leonardo Maccari (Nuxi)

Discussant: Alexandre Polvora (European Commission, Joint Research Centre)

10h15-11h45: Overcoming regulatory hurdles for the telecom commons

Chair: Félix Tréguer (CNRS)

* EU broadband policy and CNs - Maria Michalis (University of Westminster)

* Legal liability - Arthur Messaud (LQDN)

* Landline networks and the commons - Ramon Roca (Guifi)

* Amending the EU Code of Telecommunications - Benjamin Bayart (FFDN)

Discussant: José Bové (MEP, Greens/EFA)

11h45-12h00: Closing remarks by Julia Reda (MEP, Greens/EFA) and David Hammerstein (Commons Network)
## C.2. Draft Transcript

### Intros

#### Miapetra Kumpula-Natri, MEP, S&D

* We should get Europe toward the modern type of connectivity, for this we need a functioning market, not sure it is going to the right direction

* very important that local communities can be part of the global Internet

* liberties threatened by business and companies

* Code, foster competition and investments for more connectivity

* unfortunately, in roaming report, telecom companies, strong power, threaten that will not invest if they don't get rid of the regulation, very bad idea

* high prices, less selection, differentiation, technically as well

* no monopolies, connectivity for everyone and every place

* secured the rule for dark fiber,

* co-investment is one of the key issues

* from the social perspective, privacy, social integration; not only high speed with exclusion

* WiFi4EU ... more people to have access

#### Renato Lo Cigno, UniTN, netCommons

* CNs as alternatives not replacements, the netCommons project

* what is a community network: wireless and wired

* owned and operated by the community itself, the notion of commons, shared economy

* Guifi, perhaps the largest CN, running as a business

* The other extreme, ninux.org, original goal an alternative Internet (no Internet access), a parallel communication network

* netCommons: academic project, no industry

* communication, fundamental need and right

* infrastructure goes up very close to services (e.g., cloud)

* CNs: bottom-up initiatives, very diverse

* do they have something in common? A global framework for CNs to become part of the "big" scenario

* alternatives to the Internet (successors of the Internet) or alternative Internets (parallel to core infrastructure)

* more democratic and accessible living place for everybody

### Panel 1: Assessing the work of Community Networks in light of EU broadband policy

#### Leandro Navarro, UPC, netCommons

* being a citizen vs. being a consumer

* connectivity in place with lack of infrastructure

* large part of the population is not connected

* extracting value in exchange of service

* food: forced to go to well crafted restaurants that we cannot afford for every day, but we need also to be allowed to cook at home ... it should be possible

* we need also affordable devices commons
* critical resources, without Internet access you cannot live or make business in the country side

* WiFi4EU: very good idea, let's see how it develops

* market, but very assymetric one

* puzzled by the words: ultra, fast, mega, what does it mean?

* "centres of public life" ... how about rural areas? (few centres)

* "no interest" ... how is this defined?

* words that do not show, and would bring fairness in the game

* net neutrality

* monitoring and evaluation ... small kitchens cannot compete with big restaurants

* Self-provision

* B4RN, best connectivity in the UK by far

* Guifi.net: Fibre-from-the-Farm

* proven model

* in the worst case it is complementary to the other model

* if we want to connect everyone we need to have many models

* if we cannot cook at home, restaurants will not cover all our needs

* we can feed with access, extract value from them

* if you don't have the chance to provide and make sure the money do not leave the community, but go to companies, then we don't live in a democracy, we live in a farm and we are the livestock: free food in exchange of our (social) life.

## Juergen Neumann, Freifunk

* The difference between a top-down vs. bottom-up approach

* goal of Freifunk to enable their own networks for local services and also access to the Internet

* it makes a difference between top-down vs. bottom-up

* public WiFi covers only areas of commercial or touristic areas

* people can empower themselves, cheap hardware, free software, and build their own Internet access

* -> Freifunk movie: started in 2002

* secondary liability issues

* the solution was tunneling, to take the responsibility from the users, threatened

* from then on, a massive increase of the freifunk nodes

* all over Germany, it is everywhere, cities, villages, rural areas

* there are dots all over

* example of mesh network in the neighbourhood

* local initiative shared between businesses and private people

* a top-down initiative cannot reach this density

* biggest problems in the past:

- bad frequency, lack of bandwidth, bad latency because of many hops

- lack of organization, loose community structure

- legal and regulatory uncertainty

- requiring passwords, what does it mean, why should someone be identified accessing the Internet?

- no monitoring, QoS
- unreliable private engagement of individuals

- the 50000 nodes are those that are working

Leonardo Maccari, UniTN, netCommons

* Relevance

* passive (eyeballs) vs. active users

* CNs

* disseminate the Internet (education, advocacy)

* bottom-up and can reach people very difficult to reach otherwise

* educational efforts with important institutions (no technological)

* develop the Internet (they enlarge the Internet, e.g., at the edges)

* protocols and platforms, open source projects,

* Google summer of code

* developments do not stay in the community

* Librouter, open free hardware router, optimized for unconnected regions (doing it for real)

* Broadband innovation award

* Story: OpenWISP, open source network management system, actually used to manage Public WiFi

* coming out of the experience of CNs

* netCommons helps to do more interesting visualizations

* interact with Internet (from users to citizens, have a voice on how it works)

* Internet as services

* what is under the hood?

* the physical component shapes the behaviour of the applications

* CNs help to unveil this relationship

* people that understand the importance of design can demand a better design

Alexandre Polvora, Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission

* Independent advice for EC

* Urban policy lab, services, co-creation,

* Often the discussion falls into the technical side

* from the policy perspective, we need to bring some social aspects, help to push forward the discussion

* breaking the spectrum bubble, big question for CNs

* what's the place of governance models, if given a more central role?

* are they really developing bottom-up governance models?

* upscaling in volunteers

* how are volunteers are supported to do it in a more autonomous way?

* social inclusion and diversity?

* provocation: the idea of neutrality comes quite often, small ISPs go to no platform strategy for hate groups, what is the position of CNs?

* openness, co-creation, public engagement

* there is a space for this, through policy

* policy making, a more readable and understandable

* evidence, more than technological
* pushing the policy agenda, diversify the evidence

**Question by David Hammerstein, Commons Network**

* we are just creating technological opportunities, waiting to trickle down to society

* common infrastructures and the common good?

* privacy, environment, climate, commodification

* Leandro, if guifi.net was in charge would the central government could so easily intervene?

* Similar concrete questions

* I hate to see netCommons as just a technological shift to decentralization

**Juergen Neumann, Freifunk**

* about social inclusion

* bottom-up approach is driven by need

* do we empower them to be able to fix something that is not fixed by other entities in society

* everyone who has a background in CNs knows the need

* intrinsic motivation of people to change something in their environment

* how easy we make it?

* yes technically, it is about technology, need to educate them

* the technology as easily applicable as possible

* regulatory uncertainty can be detrimental, is this legal or not? afraid and not choose the easy way

* if there is safety there is a dramatic growth

* the case of refugee camps, Freifunk activities connecting them to the Internet, key need for them

* secondary liability was an important issue for the "hosts"

* we were told that areas of market failure would be served by 3G, 4G, 5G, serving everyone, everywhere

* we can learn from history that this does not happen and

* surprised how everyone can repeat this again and again

* what is the alternative? we have to make it easy for people to help themselves

* commons, shared infrastructure, shared responsibility, shared costs

* very important, needs more education and more roll out to the public

**Leonardo Maccari, UniTN, netCommons:**

* A community network is not a network connecting a community but a community building a network

**Panel 2: Overcoming regulatory hurdles for the telecom commons**

**Maria Michalis, University of Westminster, netCommons**

* about regulation, setting the context

* two phases:

- introduce competition, market liberalization, main policy aim, improve efficiency, investment was expected from private entities

- the market failed to deliver, economic growth, productivity -> broadband Internet

* updated belief: some sort of public intervention is necessary and appropriate, promote and facilitate innovation

* priority is not competition, but innovation (means broadband Internet)

* give the right incentives to innovate (to invest in broadband Internet)
* allowing monopolistic/oligopolistic structures would be OK if they can deliver innovation

* ETNO arguments: no price regulation, no control, regulation holidays, market consolidation, bigger is better

* "Why is it necessary that 2 million Slovenians have more operators than 2 billions Chinese"

* Municipal networks: from the industry perspective, they are seen as distorting competition

* Community networks: recognized, but the problem is the narrow definition (funding coming from citizens), but they are much more than that, not only about funding they are seen as "gap filling", where there are no commercial players, "white areas", commercially unattractive, minor role.

* question: Are CNs beyond gap filling? Yes, principles, values, they can respect fundamental rights and promote social cohesion.

* who funds them? (public funding could be considered "state aid")

* public/community partnerships? (observe state aid rules)

* private partners more likely to be accepted (what happens to the "values" of CNs?)

* Summary of reasons: open structures, better privacy, autonomy, control, experimentation, knowledge transfer, non-economic benefits (cohesion)

## Arthur Messaud, LQDN

* Simple question: How and when CNs can be liable for the content shared by its users?

* Mere conduit principle: protects ISPs

* when applied to non-profits it may not work as expected initially

* main issue will be a law enforcement issue

* how it works for commercial ISPs: they know their customers, store their identity, IP address, etc; since the judge can identify users no reason to put pressure on providers

* for non-profit providers (such as CNs): they do not want to identify nor contract the users; authorities are not happy and try to find solutions for the mere conduit to "adapt" for such situations

* The MacFadden case:

- SONY attempted to stop McFadden to offer access through his relay

- at first he was not found liable for sharing the content but

- a national judge should pressure McFadden to take a measure against such cases

- proposal was to use password to identify user

- This solution is in contradiction with values of CNs, complex structure to deal with that

* A new case: access + TOR node exit. As in McFadden, provider was asked to place a password capable to identify users

* in this case, provider was made liable since didn't take a measure to prevent it (not compatible with McFadden case).

* another major Tele2 case: business access provider, you cannot be required retaining of traffic data: contradiction

**Felix Treguer, CNRS, netCommons:** identification is also part of the WiFi4EU initiative (not sure how it will be implemented)

## Ramon Roca, Guifi

* Guifi non political, partisan, non governmental, we represent citizens

* freedom of speech, net neutrality in our DNA, the organization cooperating is OMNIUM

* Jordi is an independentist, this is his crime
* I was giving you an example for fighting regulations and laws with civil protest with no violence

* I can agree or not with his ideology, but what I cannot understand is Jordi being in jail for defending that

* If we want Internet everywhere with same cost (rural, urban) it is not an utopia

* fiber is very powerful, it is possible, we can do it

* we don't want digital divide, market failure, we need to solve this

* if we take a step back,

- sharing infrastructure is a must, especially in rural areas, fiber is very cheap, we cannot expect having several fibers to have several providers (like in cities)

- we cannot be naive in terms of economics (it is of interest to block competition, there are many ways), two techniques: overbuilding (replicating infrastructure using external funding) and speculation

* How to solve that: regulation is not neutral, CNs are not legal, there is a need for a regulation, it will not be neutral if it does not recognize that network infrastructure can be a public good.

* Difference between extractive and inclusive economy. This should be recognized by regulation at all levels.

* Private vs. Common good should be different in terms of taxes, etc. (not positive discrimination), at least equal opportunities,

* commons perspective should be recognized as good and different

* since the infrastructure needs to be shared, the best way to do it is as a common good

## Benjamin Bayart, FFDN

* FDN is the oldest Internet access provider in France, 1992

* before opening the market, there were 15, afterwards they were 5 (after the "opening")

* non-profit organization, volunteer based, no employees, people building their own access

* changed from organization to federation of providers each being a non-profit

* great variety

* some rural networks with WiFi, some operate in urban areas, but in this case there are problems.

* If you see Internet as infrastructure and consider NetFlix the service and Orange the infrastructure,

* the infrastructure is the fiber, etc. and you can provide different types of Internet access

* when providing access shouldn't provide content at the same time (net neutrality)

* 4G considered a viable alternative to broadband (not actually in terms of net neutrality)

* we invest a lot in work not in money, work on the infrastructure,

* working with national regulatory authority, invest to explain how we work

* the problem with the Telecom code, a tit-tat, we are the collateral damage

* when there is a public network paid by the city, it is mandatory to be available for all operators (non-discriminatory condition, for all the price is 5M EUR)

* after a lot of effort we solved some problems:

- the fee (in France the price was 20K, non-discriminatory?, for FDN this was a full year of budget)

* access to the infrastructure (we need the NRA to be able to act, to open the market when needed, the Code prevents this), regulatory holidays mean the big guys will scratch the small ones (us), need to prevent them to destroy us

* Investment is not the question, the fiber is an asset that will not depreciate, google may fail, but not the one operating the fiber,
* they may pretend the need of regulation to invest but in reality it cannot fail, and for this it needs to be regulated.

* in every apartment there is one cable, I might be able to choose from several providers, but in reality there is a single access which is a monopoly. If I cannot choose a non-profit ISP, if I cannot build for me and my friends, then the market is not open.

* The question is not if it is open between Orange and Vodafone, the question is if citizens can build their own operators, that will cover their place.

* The problem is real in rural areas, can I build infrastructure when the market is failing? Today, we cannot build fiber where is needed. We can do it technically but there are regulatory problems. If we do it it will be illegal and anonymous. It is not allowed.

* For urban people, are they only consumers or are citizens of the Internet?

* It is difficult to work with EU institutions, we are volunteers, it is difficult to take holidays to talk with EU institutions, too complex, the Code tries to lessen the power of NRA to act when we needed. In Belgium regulation failed, in France a little better, at least a chance, if there is no regulation we will have in Europe only NetFlix customers.

Discussant: José Bové, MEP, Greens/EFA

* The initiatives spread themselves even if there are problems at the European, national, or regional problems with authorities

* The people can be stronger than the economic or political authorities

* We see it in Spain, in France, at the EU level

* What is clear, and I am happy, that everybody recognizes that those that have the pipelines control everything

* This demonstration was very important

* We know it since years when Rockefeller built his empire not taking out the petrol but moving it from one place to another

* What can the communities do?

* A small experience: I live in a very local area, we will never going to have anything, we were given poor access w/ WiMax,

* always failing, cost a lot of money to regional authorities, gangsters put this up,

* Then told us we will have the pipeline (not true)

* we will give you monies to buy satellite dishes, it didn't work, worse than the WiMax,

* we met people that have built their own way, as we are in a special area, used to do things by ourselves, not always legally, Alsaces, have fought against the French army,

* If we need it, we have to build it, used radio to connect to the fiber in the city

* local authorities say it is great, can you show us how it works? we would like to do it

* Orange says the same, they don't know how to do it, but individuals are not known, a collective,

* building inside our work a common way to use the Internet, self-control, this could be changed by the people,

* this does not have to be too big, you are only communicating by Internet, the best communication is when you can see yourselves, when we are 50-100-150 is the maximum you can discuss how to build, if more people make a different group, to be able to share directly, discuss eyes in the eyes, we have to spread Internet but don't forget the people, and the people discuss directly

DISCUSSION

Julia Reda, MEP, Greens/EFA
* Council or parliament?

* do you see a possibility for us to prevent this threat?

* is already a lost cause?

### Benjamin Bayard, FFDN

* It seems to be a lost cause

* some points are interesting in the improvements by the parliament

* very far from what is needed

* monopoly is considered a powerful operator in a national market

* this is the wrong way.

* the powerful operator is from the customer point of view

* Because of the Code, National authority cannot force monopolistic operators to open their network

* the list of things that need to be proven are wrong

* they have to prove that large scale operators cannot come

* market analysis, how a new operator with only million customers can survive? If yes, the market is sane

* When we ask the price of new operators how much costs the first line, the first subscriber?

* DSL, 15K the cost of the first line

* what is the minimum size according

* the ability to host a web site is not considered

* an Internet access to watch Netflix is different than an access to host a web site, which is trivial and easy

* can I broadcast TV from my home? With fibre I should be able. Can I?

* Why CNN is allowed to broadcast in Europe and I cannot?

* Net Neutrality is defined like this in European text, but I cannot

### Ramon Roca, guifi.net

* There is something easy

* operators should be forced to interchange the traffic, this is why Internet works

* what is happening, when I get the transit from Telefonica goes through Amsterdam, not locally, leads to more latency

* looking at this kind of tactics, no one looks into this, affects net neutrality

* Simple statement: Let's do the transit interchange local and with fair prices

* 1G costs less than 2K EUR. If I ask the same from Telefonica for local transit, 20KEUR a month. No one cares, but these things could be addressed.

### Benjamin Bayard, FFDN

* Several large companies own the undersea cables. 10-20 undersea cables. Each of these cables has thousands of fibers and each has different operators. Extremely open companies. Tata telecom, worldwide groups.

* We are customers at Tata telecoms, some working with Co-gent, except the old EU phone companies (we cannot work with them). International companies can have different size of customers, they are quite open. Orange does not want to work with us. A way to create a closed market.

### Renato Lo Cigno, UniTN, netCommons
* Tier 1 operators do not care about final customers. Orange, Telecom Italia, are used to work with the final customers. They are in a position to be both a service provider for a CN and a competitor. Regulation should separate more properly who does what. This was analyzed since many years, vertical integration

**Benjamin Bayard, FFDN**

* Orange is one side targeting end-users and they are also in the wholesale market. They also work in the international transit market. Also as a submarine cable company. They are present in every market. They make choice and usually not regulated. Only the end-user market is regulated and poorly. Openness is wrongly defined, in a global market and not from an end-user point of view.

**Agnès de Cornulier, LQDN**

* The current version of the Code is not good but leaves room for NRA to regulate and take into account the CNs if they want to. Room for interpretation. The same for sharing unlicenced spectrum. They have to interpret the Code, and this can bring lots of problems. The Council will diminish the regulation possibilities. There is room to avoid something completely bad, but not toward something good.

**Juergen Neumann, Freifunk**

* for WiFi4EU. Whether to have a password or not. To make it short, it is useless. If it is shared no

* If the purpose is to identify, private persons should check IDs, in German is not allowed.

* Adds bureaucracy and complexity to the whole initiative, it does not make sense, and we should get rid of it.

**David Hammerstein, Commons Network**

* The visibility of your demands in the debate about the Code. I wish it was more visible. What would be needed?

**Melanie Dulong, CNRS, netCommons**

* In partnership with LQDN, guidelines on this specific issue

**Arthur Messaud, LQDN**

* We were there but it was not enough

**David Hammerstein, Commons Network**

* How to get out of the ghetto?

**Benjamin Bayard, FFDN**

* ETNO has a permanent office in Brussels. We do not and we cannot. There is no meaning. Some of these organizations serve villages with 200 inhabitants. It should a mission of the National authority to learn about it and represent the demands of FFDN and present something coherent to the Commission. It is the work of the Commission to learn what is happening.

**David Hammerstein, Commons Network**

* Ideally you are right

**Maarit Palovirta, ISOC**

We have a small office and tried to talk to some people about CNs. I have not found anywhere an estimation of the impact of CNs at the European scale. They understand that there is a gap and CNs can help but there is not any estimation in terms of numbers, percentages, etc.

**Ramon Roca, guifi.net**
Catalonia, there were counting various indicators, Internet adoption at the house, metropolitan areas ahead from rural areas. In Catalonia, in certain areas 15% of the share, those are data, it was released in 2013 and no released anymore, they changed the granularity to avoid this data,

## Maarit Palovirta, ISOC

Broadband awards, 20 CNs, it would be useful to have a common idea of where are these projects, examples, help us to formulate and be more forceful

## Panayotis Antoniadis, Nethood, netCommons

* I wanted to stress that CNs should not only seen as access networks, they offer access but they bring also opportunities for governance and the option to host local services and build communities to design and operate them.

* Building on the analogy with food mentioned by Leandro, CNs could be seen like organic farming, as an alternative to the “Algorithmically Modified Data” contained in big platforms

## Benjamin Bayard, FFDN

* We create skills, skilled people, more engineers that know routing than Orange

* Not only in one office in one building, but spread everywhere

* where there is a CN there is a bunch of people to know how to operate a network, get access to knowledge

* not only human relationship but also distributing skills

* if you need to build a network after an earthquake you have to call someone from FFDN because they know how to do it

## Leandro Navarro, UPC, netCommons

* The influence of the European Internet Forum and its membership in legislative processes

* Membership fees and members do not represent the interests of the citizens, they represent the players

* Not a single CN in associated members (free)

* Maybe CNs should be supported to participate

## Closing remarks: Julia Reda, MEP

* Anyone that had experiences with Community Networks very clearly sees the value

* The access is the hook that makes them interested

* the education elements and the ability to have a network to manage by themselves, neutrality, privacy, can be built from this initial hook.

* Not every politician had a personal experience, in my case Freifunk was extremely important for the formation of my party, for a long time we didn't have offices, the possibility to meet and plan activities was in public spaces with Internet through Freifunk.

* The ability to access the Internet was the primary thing that got us interested.

* We need to try to build a reflex, whenever they talk about regulation about ISPs, that they have in the back of their mind that CNs exist and play an important role.

* The same with Facebook, Youtube, forget Wikipedia

* Similarly with Orange and Telefónica

* Create this reflex, other models exist, the laws need to allow them to exist

* Look at other similar areas have done. The library community creates links with politicians at the local level. You could check who are the MEPs in your region and invite them to visit your project locally.

* Organic farming is reasonably successful in influencing the policy process, might want to visit them and learn from their strategies
* Unfortunately we are late in the process, but regulation is being formed rules dis little hope that liability rules will get better, fighting not to get worse difficult position to start from e-commerce directive is preserved in principle is possible to provide a CNs without liability for the action of users we are far.

* my advice is to build personal links, focus on the narratives, explain to politicians based on examples they already know,

* access numbers at the aggregator level are important

* also important that they know that they exist and fulfil an important purpose, refugees

* different politicians, different needs

* concrete guidelines on the Code, compare the parliament ...

* where should we focus right now?

* prioritize the points that are most important to us

* European Internet Forum: on the paper a non-partizan association, but in reality led by industry

* We formed the digital agenda intergroup, from all political groups, invite you to explore if we can do something through this group

* an event on the Telecoms code with CNs on the table

* if it is only on CNs, those working on telecoms in a broader sense will not be there

* I want to help to get you into the discussion on the Telecom code in a broader sense

* A lot of work ahead us to make it part of the policy agenda

* The idea that CNs exist and are important will hopefully in a few years be in the back of the mind of every politician working on this

David Hammerstein

* Very relevant for us to connect all CNs with other areas of the commons

* next week, European Commons Assembly, media lab Prado

* will be a special workshop on Internet and data in municipalities

* very important to connect with urban planning, agriculture, energy cooperatives

* it is not part of the agenda, but it will become part of the agenda (as in Barcelona)

* self-fulfilling prophecy, no evidence on how many people are served,

* they are small because there is no regulatory support, because they are very small

* research level, P2PValue, netCommons, D-Cent, great work, get out of the sell, out of the ghetto,

* to become more mainstream, not stay in our little area

* very troubled times, urgency

* resilience, use how to use technology in times of catastrophe

* rebuilding ecological environmental things

* unfortunately, because of crisis, we will need these decentralized things

* no regulation for the commons in general

* in between private companies and the state, is a desert, legal gap, Ugo Matei: filling the gap of the legal commons

* otherwise we will be always seen as Martians
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netCommons

Network Infrastructure as Commons

# Community Networks and Political Advocacy

Deliverable Number D1.5
Version 1.0

February 19, 2018

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