RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

RIPE NCC Country Report: Mediterranean

June 2021 RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 2 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

Introduction

The Internet is a global network of networks, yet every Highlights country’s relationship to it is different. This report t These five countries all show a high level of Internet provides an outlook on the current state of the Internet in development, healthy market competition, and robust Mediterranean Europe. We offer an analysis of the region’s and resilient Internet infrastructure market landscape and its state of development, examine t Although IPv4 shortage is less of an issue in this region Internet routing within the region, take a close look at its than other parts of the world, further IPv6 deployment access to the global system, and investigate is still needed to achieve EU-wide connectivity goals as its connections to the global Internet. This analysis is based well as future growth on what we can observe from the RIPE NCC’s measurement t The level of IPv6 deployment varies greatly in the tools as well as a few external data sources. region, with several countries at the forefront while others lag significantly behind We focus the spotlight on five different countries in the t Routing in the five countries is generally quite RIPE NCC’s service region – , , , optimised, although there are a number of anomalies and – and present a comprehensive analysis of significant enough to affect response times the region’s Internet development and potential for future t The five countries have a diverse number of routes growth in order to inform discussion, provide technical connecting them to the rest of the global Internet insight, and facilitate the exchange of information and best practices regarding Internet-related developments in this part of the world. (Note that we did not include the countries along the east coast of the Adriatic Sea, as they were covered in the RIPE NCC Southeast Europe Country Report in 2020.) This is the seventh such country report that the RIPE NCC has produced as part of an ongoing effort to support Internet development throughout our service region by making our data and insights available to local technical communities and decision makers. RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 3 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

Figure 1: Number of Local Internet Registries over time

1,500

1,200

900

600

300

0 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

The Mediterranean Europe a large footprint, the markets have evolved to be quite growth in the three larger countries – Spain, France and open and competitive, providing a good level of choice for Italy – is more obvious (and indeed, greater) in figure 1, the Market and Opportunity for enterprise and consumers. These countries benefit from differences are not as striking when looking at percentage Growth robust infrastructure and high rates of Internet penetration. growth (rather than absolute numbers) in Greece and Some of the providers in this region are global players, Portugal, which have still shown a significant increase in the The Market Landscape such as France’s Orange Group, which has significant number of LIRs. The countries included in this report span a wide range of presence across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. At the geographical sizes, populations and GDPs. As a result, their time of writing, four of the five counties have launched 5G It’s interesting to note that the number of LIRs in Spain, after Internet landscapes also differ from each other. However, networks, with the exception being Portugal.2 skyrocketing between 2016 and 2020, actually started to as part of the European Union (EU), all five countries decline after 2020. Even so, the number remains on par with have some shared ICT objectives, such as the EU’s 2025 Number of Providers and Other Organisations those of France and Italy, although the population of Spain is broadband goals,1 and, to a large extent, share a common Running Their Own Networks significantly smaller than those two countries. In general, a regulatory framework, being part of the EU internal market. As the Regional Internet Registry for Mediterranean Europe, higher number of networks often signals a more diversified the RIPE NCC can track the development of the local market, with a larger number of service providers operating All five countries have a long history of Internet growth and Internet over time through growth in the number of RIPE their own networks; however, this is not always the case. development and although incumbent providers maintain NCC members and Local Internet Registries (LIRs). Although 1 https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/broadband-strategy-policy 2 European 5G Observatory RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 4 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

accounts, France has 168, Italy has 77, Portugal has 16 and RIPE NCC Members and Local Internet Registries Figure 2: Greece has 5. (LIRs) Number of networks RIPE NCC members include Internet service providers, Network Growth and Diversity content hosting providers, government agencies, In general, a larger number of Local Internet Registries 2,000 academic institutions and other organisations that corresponds to a larger number of independently operated run their own networks in the RIPE NCC’s service networks called Autonomous Systems, each of which region of Europe, the Middle East and Central . 1,802 is represented by an Autonomous System Number, or The RIPE NCC distributes Internet address space to ASN. (An Autonomous System is a group of IP networks these members, who may further assign IP addresses that are run according to a single, clearly defined routing to their own end users. It is possible for members to policy. There are currently about 70,000 active ASNs on the open more than one account, called a Local Internet Internet today.) 1,500 Registry (LIR). The number of networks in a given country is one indication For a long time, the majority of RIPE NCC members were of market maturity. The greater the diversification, the more large Internet service and access providers. More recently, opportunity exists for interconnection among networks, 1,191 however, we’ve seen a significant increase in other types which increases resiliency. 1,154 of organisations requiring IP addresses to run their own networks, including hosting providers, government The RIPE NCC is responsible for the allocation of ASNs in its region. This provides us unique insight into the distribution 1,000 agencies, universities, businesses, etc. This has allowed more organisations to exert more control over their and deployment of these networks across the Internet. Internet address resources and the ways in which they Again, we see the larger countries dominating here, route their traffic. As a result, an increase in the number although with slightly different results than we saw in the of LIRs doesn’t necessarily translate into an increase in the number of LIRs. Although Italy has about 90% of France’s number of Internet access providers. population, it has only about 66% of France’s number of networks. And while Greece and Portugal have comparable In addition, it’s possible for the same organisation to hold populations, Greece has far more networks than Portugal. 500 several LIR accounts. This practice became a significant trend after 2012, when the amount of IPv4 address space Interestingly, the diversity in networks we see in these five being allocated was restricted as the remaining IPv4 countries doesn’t translate directly into more competition address pool became smaller and smaller (as explained and lower access prices. In terms of mobile broadband 215 in more detail in the IPv4 section below). Indeed, we see prices, at least, Italy is one of the six least expensive 124 this taking place in Mediterranean Europe – especially in countries in the EU, while France is one of 11 EU countries Spain, where 175 LIRs closed between the start of 2020 and considered “relatively inexpensive”. Spain, Greece and 0 the time of writing, 93 of which were “additional accounts” Portugal are three of the seven EU countries that fall (those belonging to members with more than one account into the "relatively expensive" category. None of the five each). During the same period, only 81 new LIRs were countries are considered "expensive" by EU standards.3 opened in Spain, creating a downward trend in terms of overall growth. In total, Spain has 242 “additional” LIR 3 https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/broadband-connectivity RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 5 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

Figure 3: Figure 4: IPv4 holdings IPv4 holdings by organisation

% Millions 80 100 70 Portugal 82,565,520 60 80 Forthnet Proxad 50 MEO Orange Espagne Vodafone- 60 55,013,440 SFR Panafon Wind Tre 40 Vodafone (Ono) Vodafone 40 30 Telefonica 32,012,096 OTE Orange Telecom Italia NOS 20 Comunicações 20 10 5,705,216 6,687,776 0 0

ES FR GR IT PT

IPv4 Address Space in Mediterranean Europe Indeed, none of the five countries included in this report addresses are held by just three organisations. While it was Until 2012, RIPE NCC members could receive larger amounts continued to accrue any significant amounts of IPv4 address difficult to obtain clear and consistent data on market share, of IPv4 address space based on demonstrated need. When space after 2012. Even up until that time, we saw very little we believe these findings are generally representative in that the RIPE NCC reached the last /8 of IPv4 address space in growth in the amount of IPv4 space in Portugal and Greece, these providers hold a significant share of the Internet access 2012, the RIPE community instituted a policy allowing new while there was moderate growth in Spain, significant markets in these countries. Figure 4 shows the organisations LIRs to receive a small allocation of IPv4 (1,024 addresses) growth in Italy and the highest growth rate in France – all with the three largest amounts of IPv4 in each country. in order to help them make the transition to IPv6, the next of which we see reflected in each country’s IPv4 holdings generation protocol that includes enough IP addresses for today. Note that even in countries where a large number IPv4 Secondary Market the foreseeable future. In November 2019, the RIPE NCC of organisations opened additional LIR accounts to receive To fill the demand for more IPv4 address space, a made the last of these allocations and a system now exists further IPv4 allocations, the amounts were so small that secondary market has arisen in recent years, with IPv4 whereby organisations that have never received IPv4 from they didn’t significantly increase the countries’ overall IPv4 being bought and sold between different organisations. the RIPE NCC can receive an even smaller allocation from holdings. The RIPE NCC plays no role in these financial transactions, a pool of recovered address space (occasionally member ensuring only that the RIPE Database – the record of accounts are closed and address space is returned to the We also note a fairly high amount of IPv4 consolidation; in which address space has been registered to which RIPE RIPE NCC). each of the five countries, between 50% and 75% of IPv4 NCC members – remains as accurate as possible. RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 6 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

As demand for IPv4 continues despite the dwindling pool Figure 5: of available space, many providers and other organisations IPv4 transfers within, into and out of Mediterranean Europe between December 2016 and May 2021 have turned to the secondary market. Figure 5 shows the IPv4 transfers that have taken place within, into and out of each country in the region since the market became active. Outgoing transfers Incoming transfers We can see an active secondary market in this part of the IN 548,352 world, with IPv4 addresses being transferred both to and from each of the five countries. Unsurprisingly, the market DK 262,656 IT 1,928,704 is dominated by the three larger countries of Spain, France and Italy, all of which include a large number of domestic IT 1,041,920 transfers (in which addresses are transferred between JP 69,632 two parties in the same country). The biggest recipient IR 38,912 CH 33,280 organisations have been:

US 1,385,984 t OVH SAS (France): 917,504 addresses t : 720,896 addresses FR 2,142,720 t Vodafone España: 646,144 addresses DE 280,320 t : 524,288 addresses UK 383,488 t Orange España: 489,216 addresses

CH 212,480 SY 116,736 Of note is a /13 transfer from India to Italy (524,288 addresses) which took place between Reliance Other 666,112 PT 854,016 Communications Limited and Sky Italia in August 2018. While the commercial nature of this transaction is unknown, UK 136,960 RO 989,184 Reliance Communications filed for bankruptcy in February 2019.4 However, the amount of IPv4 transferred into each of the five countries makes up only a small fraction of their UA 175,872 total IPv4 holdings, so none are significantly reliant on the ES 2,460,928 IPv4 secondary market. FR 1,040,384

Internet Penetration and Potential for Future Growth

NL 353,536 GR 54,528 All five countries included in this report have relatively large Other 131,072 amounts of IPv4 space for their populations. In France RU 255,232 especially, we see the unusual case of there being more CA 262,656 PT 153,856 IPv4 addresses than inhabitants, with 1.2 addresses per US 108,288

ES 675,584 NL 157,952 SE 27,392 GR 136,704 BG 37,888 4 https://www.reuters.com/article/rcom-debt/rcom-goes-to-bankruptcy-court-to-resolve-debt- burden-idINKCN1PQ4WT?edition-redirect=in RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 7 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

capita. In the other countries, this figure ranges from 0.9 Figure 6: in Italy to 0.5 in Greece, with Spain and Portugal falling in Percentage of households with Internet access between, each with 0.7 addresses per capita. This is one to two orders of magnitude more IPv4 addresses per capita 90 than we’ve seen in some other countries in the RIPE NCC’s service region, and can likely be attributed to the early 80 Internet development that took place in Mediterranean 70 Europe compared to many other parts of the world.

60 With such high address-to-population ratios throughout the 50 region, first-rate connectivity coverage should be possible for these countries’ populations. Indeed, this is what we see 40 in figure 6. Although Portugal and Greece do have some of 30 the lower Internet access rates in the EU, these percentages are still very high on a global scale, and we see that all five 20 countries continue to improve connectivity. 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 Interestingly, rates for broadband subscriptions don’t follow Source: OECD the same pattern. While Spain scores highest on Internet access, Greece and Portugal have higher rates of broadband subscriptions per capita than Spain (or Italy). This is probably explained, at least in part, by the fact that Spain and Italy Figure 7: have the most mobile subscriptions per capita, suggesting Fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 people over time that people in those countries rely more on their mobile 45 devices for Internet connectivity than fixed broadband 40 subscriptions. 35 30 25

20 15 10

5 0 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018

Source: OECD RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 8 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

In particular, Italy’s notably larger number of mobile Figure 8: subscriptions might be at least partially attributed to Mobile subscriptions per 100 people over time its inexpensive mobile broadband prices (as previously mentioned). All five countries have high mobile subscription 180 rates, averaging more than one per person, even though 160 most fall on the lower end of the EU average. We do see 140 a slight decline in Italy in recent years, possibly signalling market saturation. We also see Portugal stand out in terms 120 of broadband growth over the past 7-8 years. This may be 100 due, at least in part, to a concerted effort on the part of its 80 regulator and key operators, which have invested in shared 60 infrastructure in a joint effort to expand coverage.5 40 20 Although all five countries have large amounts of IPv4 address space, the high rates of mobile subscriptions mean 0 that mobile operators in particular are likely relying on 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 address-sharing techniques to serve their growing numbers of customers. Technical workarounds that allow multiple Source: OECD users to share a single IP address, such as carrier-grade network address translation (CGN), are in widespread use in mobile broadband connectivity. However, there are well- Figure 9: documented drawbacks to address-sharing technologies, IPv6 holdings and deploying IPv6 remains the only sustainable strategy for accommodating future growth and reaching the EU’s goal of equipping every European household with a 100 Mbps connection by 20256 – not to mention supporting 5,567 emerging technologies such as 5G, the Internet of Things and more. 14,174 IPv6 in Mediterranean Europe 378 When it comes to IPv6 holdings, the five countries display a similar pattern to what we saw with IPv4. France dominates 9,658 the region, followed by Italy and Spain, with Portugal and Greece holding just a fraction of the space that these larger 471 countries have.

0 3k 6k 9k 12k 15k 5 ITU background paper: Infrastructure sharing and co-deployment in Europe: good practices Number of addresses (multiples of /32) based on collaborative regulation 6 https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/broadband-strategy-policy RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 9 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

In terms of distribution within the countries, figure 10 Figure 10: shows the organisations with the three largest amounts IPv6 holdings by organisation of IPv6 in each country. In both France and Italy, a single provider accounts for a large fraction (58% and 42% % respectively) of the IPv6 addresses, whereas we see a much 60 more even distribution in Portugal and Greece. Unlike Proxad SFR IPv4, IPv6 addresses are widely available (although large Orange allocations are based on demonstrated need), so hoarding is not a factor here. It’s worth noting that just because organisations hold large amounts of IPv6 address space 50 does not mean they have actually deployed IPv6 and that Sky Italia the addresses are in use. Some networks might hold a large Wind Tre amount of address space without using it (possibly having presented plans for future growth when requesting large

Telecom Italia allocations), while others might have deployed IPv6 across 40 entire networks and be able to serve their entire customer base with a relatively small allocation. This is the case with Sky Italia, for example, which holds just 1.33% of the IPv6 addresses registered in Italy, but has achieved more than 90% deployment within its network. 30

20

Adjenet Networks

Secretaria de Estado de WebSP 10 Administraciones Vodafone-Panafon Publicas Telefonica Prokopiou A. Dream Fusion Toulkaridis

NOS Comunicações Enartia

0

ES FR GR IT PT RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 10 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

Because larger IPv6 allocations are made in Spain and Italy said they had no plans Figure 11: according to need, we would expect to to deploy IPv6, compared to an average IPv6 deployment rates see deployment rates roughly reflect the of 23% among all survey respondents. In different amounts of IPv6 address space looking at why respondents from Spain we see in each country, yet this is definitely and Italy hadn’t yet deployed IPv6, the top not the case. For example, Italy holds 68% reasons given were a lack of business need IPv6 capability of the amount of IPv6 address space as or requirement, a lack of knowledge or

10% France, but its deployment rate is a small expertise, and a lack of time. However, in 20% fraction of France’s (5-6% versus 47-51% addition to the 8% of respondents in Spain respectively). The situation is similar for and Italy who said they were fully deployed, World 28-35% 30% Spain. (Note we include a range of data another 47% said they either had a plan, 40% sources, as different organisations have were currently testing IPv6 or had just 50% different measurement methods that started deployment, so perhaps we will see result in slightly different figures.) improvement in IPv6 deployment in these countries in the years ahead. In trying to better understand the FR 47-51% situation, we look to the RIPE NCC Survey Governments, regulators, Internet 2019,7 which polled more than 4,000 exchange points (IXPs) and local network network operators and other members operator groups (NOGs) all have a role of the technical community, including 674 to play in IPv6 deployment. In France, total respondents from Portugal, Spain, for example, the 5-6% IT France, Italy and Greece. regulator, Arcep, has been active in 3% ES pushing IPv6 deployment, launching an While only 40% of survey respondents IPv6 task force in 2019 and publishing PT 38-40% GR 47-50% in Portugal, France and Greece indicated regulator reports on uptake. In Greece, that they believe their organisations will where we also see a high level of IPv6 require more IPv4 in the next 2-3 years, deployment, GR-IX, the country’s main IXP, 54% in Spain and Italy did the same (which has also been very active in encouraging is in line with the total average among all its members to deploy IPv6, and the local survey respondents of 53%). When asked technical community, through GRNOG, about the current state of their networks’ is extremely active in supporting the IPv6 deployment, 25% of respondents in country’s network operators in their own Portugal, France and Greece said that they IPv6 deployments. These factors can were fully deployed, compared to just 8% contribute significantly to a country’s who said the same in Spain and Italy (the overall Internet development and the total average among all respondents was ability to transition to the next generation 22%). Additionally, 32% of respondents protocol. Sources: Akamai: https://www.akamai.com/us/en/resources/our-thinking/state-of-the-internet-report/state-of-the-internet--adoption- visualization.jsp. APNIC: https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ipv6. : https://www.google.com/intl/en/ ipv6/statistics.html#tab=per-country-ipv6-adoption. 7 RIPE NCC Survey 2019: https://www.ripe.net/survey RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 11 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

2. Domestic and International Most notably, we will not see peerings at regional IXPs, where the intention is to keep local traffic within the Connectivity country or region. Nevertheless, graphing the connections that we can detect provides valuable insight into domestic connectivity. Domestic Connectivity Between Networks To understand the relationships that exist between With more than a thousand ASNs registered in Spain, different networks, we can investigate the interconnections France and Italy, and one to two hundred in Portugal and within each of the countries using data from the RIPE NCC’s Greece, it is unfortunately not possible to visualise all the Routing Information Service (RIS), which employs a globally connections between each network in these countries. To distributed set of route collectors to collect and store get a picture of high-level patterns, however, we restricted Internet routing data. This shows us the available paths the following figures to include the top 100 most frequently that exist between networks (as opposed to actual paths observed segments in the BGP paths. taken).

For each country, we plot how the routes propagate from one network to another (arrows indicate the direction of BGP flow, which is opposite to traffic flow) up to the point where the path reaches a foreign network. For each path, we discard the first few hops that detail how routes propagate through international networks; our focus is on routing inside each country and the connections to the outside world. The nodes in each figure are colour-coded according to the country where the network (ASN) is registered, and the width of the lines is determined by the number of paths in which we see the connection between the different ASNs. Note that the position of the different networks doesn't correspond to any kind of geographical layout; instead, these figures are merely a visual representation of the interconnections between the networks in each country.

Due to the nature of (BGP) and the RIS route collection processes, our view is limited to the routes followed by international traffic. We will only observe relationships between two service providers in a country when one or both partners announce the other’s routes to a third party that further propagates the route. RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 12 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

In France, we can see nine clusters around various Figure 12: networks, indicating the significant role they play in the Connectivity between networks in France country’s domestic connectivity by connecting a number of other networks to the rest of the Internet. Five of these are registered to French organisations: Acorus (AS35280), Jaguar Network SAS (AS30781), Zayo France (AS8218), SFR (AS15557) and OpenTransit (AS5511). The other four are international providers with headquarters outside of France: Telia (AS1299), Hurricane Electric (AS6939),

57752 Level3 (AS3356) and Cogent (AS174). We can also clearly 15829 13193 see how Orange’s domestic network (AS3215), relies on 1327316073 60983 197033 29396 203058 OpenTransit – Orange’s international backbone – for its 3259 34019 50628 34444 main connectivity. 9180 34659 8723 49961 29467 35625 61205 30781 56844 29608 16347 35280 3356 39405

43531 34177 1273

43646 12670 2914 34235 60032 15557 1299 12566 25540 3299 2280 60855 35012 28708

20900 6762 34949 5511 8487 6939 34549 41291 1239 21409 1301 3257 57809 6461

3216 174 12956 6453 8218 202089 44530 20926 35184 42845 198682 35393 2200 31167 24954 44407 21320 200484 3215 201325 8362 1712

50664 41327 RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 13 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

Spain’s domestic connectivity is dominated by two networks: Figure 13: ServiHosting Networks (AS29119) and US-based Cogent Connectivity between networks in Spain (AS174). Many of Spain’s networks receive connectivity via these providers. We also notice less prominent but still important clusters around Vodafone España (AS12430), Producmedia (AS43833) and Telefónica Global Solutions (AS12956), which is the upstream for Telefónica de España (AS3352) and the networks that it serves. Similar to the situation in France, we can also see how Orange España (AS12479) predominantly relies on OpenTransit (AS5511) 13287 42947 3339 16030 41343 for its international connectivity. 50977 60609 8311 1233850129 57970 3902020077348146 31577 3549 39155 59908 201942 43160 198193 1299 43833 60458 200845 57910 174 198760 49835 3214 29119 35699 16039 50563 62235 200064 202636 3267 62412 34977 39737 202766 48427 198066 15704

34927 33891 8637 37468 50564 6453

3257 2914

3356 12956 12541 12357 201453 10429 6939

9002

12430 51487 1273 5511 3352 206487 12479

6739 16371 39551 2134 12386 13030 RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 14 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

In Italy, we see Telecom Italia Sparkle (AS6762) serving Figure 14: many international connections. This network is also the Connectivity between networks in Italy main upstream provider for Telecom Italia’s domestic network (AS3269). Smaller clusters around international operators Level3 (AS3356), GTT (AS3257), Cogent (AS174), NTT (AS2914), Telia (AS1299) and Hurricane Electric (6939) also stand out, in addition to Italian networks Wind 49289 (AS1267), Fiber Telecom (AS41327), IT.Gate (AS12779) and 57300 Fastweb (AS12874). 39636 41364 196983

50316 47187 43364 42425 44092 31638

197293 12779 30848

15605 41327 174 2594

62007 137

49367 31115 2914 9002 48544 28716 4230 62240 201602 3242 12956 21176 6762 36236 60798 3257 2603 202709 6453 198102 6461 198471 1299

3302 5396 24608 1267 5400 5602 203201 8968 3313 16232 15663 3269 3356 6939 20746 31034 20959 12874 12559 15589 48815 56376 51569 30722 56550

44831 209897 3303 43976

15720 1273 RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 15 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

The role of GRNET, the national research and education Figure 15: network (NREN), stands out in Greece, where we see how Connectivity between networks in Greece GRNET (AS5408) connects many academic networks to the outside world via GÉANT (AS21320), the European research network that is based in the .

We also see clusters around Forthnet (AS1241), OTE (AS6799) and Lambda Hellix (AS56910). Lambda Hellix gets connectivity from Hurricane Electric (AS6939) and Vodafone-Panafon (AS3329), which in turn relies on Vodafone GlobalNet (AS1273) for external connectivity. Also noteworthy is the cluster around Cogent (AS174), which is seen as a direct upstream provider for several 1299 2896935472 34927 35506 29247 8388 15430 199370 Greek networks. 29353 39867 1273 201293 39062 12713 6799

3260 15439 12361 37468 206697 196945 205053 197746 3356 206456 208552 199382 3329 30850 89911594812402 6867 1241 208785 200744 9069 8280 15690 6939 13153 20813 8762 16013 5489 31042 8581 5408 21320 12364 15544 8643 208149 6762 8522 3491 15536 57463 200736 5470 198477 8617 8611 86188253 8248 25472 198188 56910

3257 13335 197580 174 47521 199081 199375 200314 199246 15617 505204236560597 50919 209150 206652

208108 RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 16 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

In Portugal, the prominent position of Hurricane Electric Figure 16: (AS6939) also stands out. The network connects a Connectivity between networks in Portugal substantial fraction of Portugal’s networks to the rest of the Internet, both directly and indirectly, with most of the indirect connections passing through MEO Internacional (AS8657) and Communications (AS13156). MEO Internacional, in turn, is the exclusive upstream for other parts of MEO: MEO Residencial (AS3243), MEO Empresas (AS15525) and MEO Movel (AS42863). This illustrates how a single organisation can use multiple ASNs to structure its

213277 networks. 35280 1303015457 13200 Other major players in connecting Portugal to the rest of the 9002 9118 Internet include: NOS Comunicações (AS2860), with Cogent 34873 41159 24768 59528 64472 6773 42580 (AS174) and Tata Communications (AS6453) as primary 210300 2860 41962 upstreams; ONI Telecom (AS9186), receiving transit from 207112 35822 51167 43887 NOWO Communications (AS13156); and RCCN (AS1930), 1299 31413 3243 2914 8426 207002 the NREN which primarily relies on GÉANT (AS21320) for 4230 8609 external connectivity, though some paths are also seen 197802 15525 6453 25060 6939 47784 via Hurricane Electric (AS6939). Finally, we see how Cogent 49941 33876 44785 (AS174) provides transit not only to NOS Comunicações 43990 201449 8657 (AS2860) and its customers, but also directly to other 12926 5516 Portugese networks. 3356 47787 174 3257 A visualisation of Internet connectivity, like we see in these 13156 29003 203020 figures, should resemble a deeply interconnected web,

201782 42863 with a large distribution of paths and interconnections 1930 5626 200942 that lack clear choke points or bottlenecks. Indeed, all five 39384 12353 21320 202170 countries included in this report display a high level of

20965 interconnectivity among their domestic networks, indicating 35038 199993 199155 9186 a mature, developed local landscape that provides a good 8220 43652 37468 level of redundancy and resiliency. 201170

210221 47202 55195 57350 200706 34643 41708 201523 1273 212073 RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 17 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

International Connectivity Figure 17: Extending our view, we now look beyond domestic France’s international connectivity connectivity to examine how Mediterranean Europe connects to the rest of the world. To investigate this, we again turn to the RIPE NCC’s Routing Information Service Cogent 86,335 (RIS). We look at the routes collected by RIS for IP networks COLT 14,192 664 Other FR ASNs 216,621 in each country and identify the last foreign and first domestic network encountered in these paths. This gives 129 Other non-FR ASNs 102,686 us an overview of which operators provide international EURAFIBRE 5,964 RIS route connectivity into each country. Hurricane Electric 30,549 collectors France OpenTransit 95,608 442,503 442,503 In France, we see OpenTransit, Orange’s international Level3 66,512 backbone, in a large number of the paths connecting LDCOMNET 29,721 Tata Communications 13,992 to French networks. However, we also see how large TI Sparkle 7,802 RENATER 14,341 GTT-Backbone 24,495 CELESTE 5,977 international players like Cogent, Level3, Telia and others Serveurcom 4,293 directly serve hundreds of other French networks without Telia 41,329 JAGUAR 21,235 ACORUS 8,381 going through the incumbent or a handful of large domestic NTT-COMMUNICATIONS 23,316 NEO 35,310 providers. This is a sign of an open and competitive market. ZAYO-6461 31,295 ALPHALINK.: 5,052 5,052 Italy shows a similar pattern, with many different networks being served by different upstream providers, and a diverse Figure 18: choice of large upstream providers serving Italy’s domestic Italy’s international connectivity networks directly.

Cogent 72,415

PROLEXIC 7,251 454 Other IT ASNs 195,187 GTT-Backbone 45,852

101 Other non-IT ASNs 98,785 LINKEM 17,782 RIS route TI Sparkle 90,732 Italy collectors Hurricane Electric 29,395 439,477 439,477 GARR 8,313 Level3 75,371 ITGATE 7,301 WINDTRE 18,606 NTT-COMMUNICATIONS 29,660 FIBERTELECOM 8,518 BT-Italia 11,733 Telia 38,016 RETELIT 15,682 Tata Communications 8,758 FASTWEB 41,922 13,689 VODAFONE GlobalNet 20,285 VODAFONE-IT 23,701 RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 18 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

In Spain, international connectivity is dominated by the Figure 19: connection from Orange España via OpenTransit (Orange’s Spain’s international connectivity backbone). However, while the relationship between the two is clear, the relative size is not representative of the real market share. The oversized representation in figure 19 is probably caused by Orange España announcing its address OpenTransit 389,092 space in smaller fragments, creating a larger number of Orange España 474,387 prefixes in the routing table and, therefore, more paths – despite the fact that Telefónica holds more announced IPv4 COLT 28,576 address space than Orange España does.

87 Other non-ES ASNs 127,726 RIS route 348 Other ES ASNs 274,068 Spain collectors Level3 106,501 1,071,320 1,071,320 Hurricane Electric 72,497 SERVIHOSTING 89,074

PRODUCMEDIA 23,983 Cogent 170,179 XTRA TELECOM 22,393 Telefonica 54,485 GTT-Backbone 28,680 Avatel & Wikiker Telecom 15,357 Telia 54,335 ADAMOEU 18,943 NTT-COMMUNICATIONS 23,613 as-codinet 19,262 Tata Communications 31,230 VODAFONE_ES 57,231 VODAFONE GlobalNet 38,891 PROCONO 22,137 RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 19 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

In Portugal and Greece, the situation is different. As noted Figure 20: earlier, these countries have an order of magnitude fewer Portugal’s international connectivity networks than the three larger countries. As a result, the main providers in Portugal and Greece play a role in a Telia 894 much larger fraction of the routing paths into and out of MEO-INTERNACIONAL 6,354 the country. In Greece, we see another case of Vodafone- Hurricane Electric 11,274 Panafon being overrepresented in terms of its actual market NOS_COMUNICACOES 8,904 share, as it simply has a larger number of announced prefixes, even though OTE has more total address space. While Vodafone GlobalNet is the only upstream provider for Tata Communications 9,126 RIS route NOWO COMMUNICATIONS 6,594 Portugal Vodafone-Panafon, the former likely has diverse peerings collectors 34,878 with other major networks. Depending on where the traffic 34,878 ALMOUROLTEC 2,646 Cogent 5,994 handoff takes place between “local” and “global” Vodafone ArTelecomPT 486 (i.e. how distant this is from the domestic network), this may 9 Other non-PT ASNs 1,158 RCCN 3,768 NTT-COMMUNICATIONS 288 still provide resilient connections to the global Internet. REFERTELECOM 522 GEANT 2,988 22 Other PT ASNs 2,442 COLT 516 In general, the higher the number of different available VODAFONE-PT 1,974 VODAFONE GlobalNet 1,578 route paths we see into and out of a country, the better. FNXTEC 546 XERVERS 702 CLARANET 516 Flesk 486 This is because relying on a small number of dominant domestic providers to provide the vast majority of the connections into and out of a country creates the potential Figure 21: for bottlenecks and single points of failure, negatively Greece’s international connectivity impacting that country’s Internet stability, regardless of how many upstream connections they have. In Mediterranean Europe, the visualisations of the countries’ international connectivity paint a positive picture. In France, Spain Vodafone GlobalNet 22,722 Vodafone-Panafon 21,390 and Italy we see an especially high level of diversity in international connections. While this is slightly less robust in Portugal and Greece, the interconnection environment is GEANT 5,394 GR-NET 5,466 still relatively developed and diverse in these two countries. Telia 3,312 OTEGlobe 7,500 RIS route Level3 6,846 Greece collectors LamdaHellix 3,930 64,248 64,248 Hurricane Electric 7,800 FORTHNET-GR 6,636

ZAYO-6461 690 OTENET-GR 1,920 LANCOM 3,426 Cogent 7,806 35 Other GR ASNs 5,418 20 Other non-GR ASNs 2,178 SYNAPSECOM 2,622 TI Sparkle 5,604 WIND 4,392 PCCW Global 1,374 GTT-Backbone: 522 TISGR-NET 1,548 RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 20 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

3. , Traffic

Paths and Routing Security Even so, confining our measurements to look only at K-root and the choices that different RIPE Atlas probes in the region make about which K-root instance to query provides Reaching the Domain Name System some insight into how the routing system considers the Turning now to investigate how traffic is routed to, from various options and decides which networks and locations and within the region, we first examine which local will provide the best results. instances of K-root are queried from requests originating in the different countries. Border Gateway Protocol and Anycast The K-, like many other DNS servers, K-root and DNS uses a technique called anycast whereby each individual K-root is one of the world’s 13 root name servers that instance of K-root is independently connected to the form the core of the domain name system (DNS), Internet via a local Internet exchange point or any which translates human-readable URLs (such as number of upstream networks available at its location. https://www.ripe.net) into IP addresses. The RIPE NCC Each instance communicates using the Border Gateway operates the K-root name server. A globally distributed Protocol (BGP), which is designed to select the best constellation of these root name servers consists of path out of all the available options. Initially, the most local “instances” that are exact replicas. This set-up adds important criterion here is path length, and the system will resiliency and results in faster response times for DNS choose the path with the lowest number of intermediary clients and, ultimately, end users. networks. However, network operators can override the BGP decision-making process, often for reasons relating to costs or ownership. It is not uncommon for These measurements are based on the RIPE NCC’s RIPE networks to prefer routes that may be longer but are Atlas measurement platform, which employs a global less expensive due to peering arrangements via an network of probes to measure Internet connectivity and Internet exchange point or a parent company. reachability (see the section on RIPE Atlas at the end of the report for more information about how to get involved). Note that K-root is just one of the world’s 13 root name servers, and every domain name system (DNS) client will make its own decisions about which particular root name server to use. In cases where response times to K-root would be relatively slow, it is highly likely that clients would opt for faster alternatives among the other root name servers. RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 21 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

Figure 22: K-root locations reached from within Mediterranean Europe (IPv4)

650k

550k

450k

350k

250k

150k

Number of measurements 50k

10/2019 12/2019 02/2020 04/2020 06/2020 08/2020 10/2020 12/2020 02/2021 4/2020

Lyon/FR Paris/FR Frankfurt/DE Palermo/IT Zurich/CH /NL Milan/IT Athens/GR London/GB Berlin/DE

Karlsruhe/DE Geneva/CH Barcelona/ES Gdynia/PL Salvador/BR Madrid/ES Sofia/BG Hamburg/DE Yerevan/AM

Guangzhou/CN Tehran/IR Prague/CZ Vienna/AT /LU Moscow/RU

There are eight K-root instances hosted in this region, Figure 22 also showcases how dynamic the domain name We also looked into which K-root instances were queried in Madrid, Barcelona, Lyon, Paris, Prato (just outside of system is, as we can see several changes that took place. by RIPE Atlas probes in the different countries on a given Florence), Milan, Palermo and Athens. Figure 22 shows From early December 2019 to early February 2020, the day. In Portugal, which doesn’t host a K-root instance, which K-root instances were reached by RIPE Atlas probes K-root instance in Lyon was unavailable as the host network we saw the majority of probes reaching the instance in in the five countries in Mediterranean Europe from October was renumbered. Thanks to anycasting, this did not have Zurich, while others reached Amsterdam, London and 2019 until May 2021. Of the top 10 instances reached, half an impact on the performance of the root name service, as Geneva. The majority of probes in Spain reached the were located in the region, while the other half were located the Border Gateway Protocol automatically found available instances in Barcelona or Madrid, with a smaller number slightly farther afield but still within Europe, including alternatives in Amsterdam, Karlsruhe and Gdynia – all of reaching Karlsruhe in . In France, we saw more Frankfurt, Amsterdam, London, Zurich and Berlin. We see which are close enough to maintain ideal round-trip times. probes reaching the K-root instance in Lyon than any seven of the eight K-root instances in the region being Once the work was completed on the host network in Lyon, other instance; interestingly, however, far more probes reached overall, with the exception of the instance in Prato, the K-root instance hosted there was re-enabled and DNS reached the instance in Palermo than the one located in Italy. A small number of queries reached K-root instances as queries automatically resumed. These types of events Paris. About half the probes in Italy reached instances far away as Brazil, , and – all of which are illustrate the resiliency and flexibility of the root server in Milan or Palermo, but the majority of the remainder suboptimal choices that will result in longer response times. system. were sent to Frankfurt, with a smaller number reaching RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 22 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

Geneva and Amsterdam. Finally, we saw the best optimisation Figure 23: in Greece, where the vast majority of probes reached the K-root K-root locations reached from different networks throughout Mediterranean Europe (IPv4) instance in Athens. In general, the round-trip times throughout the region were reasonable, with a few exceptions of probes in ASN Network name Probes France reaching an instance in Salvador, Brazil that resulted in

3215 Orange 219 longer response times and one case of a probe in Spain taking FR 12322 PROXAD 215 an unusually long time to reach an instance in Madrid, perhaps 15557 LDCOMNET 81 due to network congestion or suboptimal routing, although the 5410 BOUYGTEL-ISP 5 14 41 exact reason is unknown. 35540 OVH-TELECOM 13 24904 KWAOO 7 5 8228 CEGETEL 11 We can also look at which K-root instances are queried by 2200 FR-RENATER 9 probes in different networks, as opposed to different countries. 16276 OVH 10 As we have RIPE Atlas probes in hundreds of networks in this 12876 Online SAS 7 30781 JAGUAR 7 region, a graph including every network would be illegible; as a 8362 NordNet 6 compromise, we included networks that have at least four active 208574 Tubeo 4 probes. 41090 E-LIANCE 4 51207 FREEM 4

2860 NOS_COMUNICACOES 312 Traditionally, the BGP decision-making process would ensure PT 3243 MEO-RESIDENCIAL 30 that once a particular path has been identified as being the best 12353 VODAFONE-PT 11 option, there is consistency across all the routers that are part of 15457 NOS_MADEIRA 8 that particular network. Indeed, this is very much what we see in 42580 CABOTVA 6 3269 Telecom Italia 67 figure 23, where all the probes in almost every network end up IT 1267 WIND TRE 25 querying the same K-root instance. However, there are quite a 12874 FASTWEB 23 few cases in which we see networks favouring a K-root instance 30722 VODAFONE-IT 14 farther away than the closest (geographical) option, such as NOS 35612 NGI 14 8612 TISCALI-IT 9 Comunicações in Portugal favouring the K-root instance in Zurich 198471 LINKEM 6 over the instance in Madrid or Barcelona. In most cases, this is 137 ASGARR 5 due to the peering arrangements or other relationships that exist 21309 CASAWEB 4 between networks, including with their upstream providers. For 50316 NET_GLOBAL_SRL 4 3352 Telefonica_de_Espana 44 example, we see the OVH Télécom network reaching a K-root ES 12479 Orange Espagne 15 instance in Salvador, Brazil, where OVH has a presence. Again, 57269 DIGISPAINTELECOM 4 we see that Greece is particularly optimised, with all the probes 15704 XTRA TELECOM 4 reaching a K-root instance in Athens or nearby Sofia. 766 RedIRIS 4 6799 OTENET-GR 29 GR 3329 VODAFONE-PANAFON 15 It’s worth noting that the shortest path (from a routing perspective) 1241 FORTHNET-GR 12 for a network in Mediterranean Europe to a root name server 25472 WIND 7 might well be through Frankfurt or Zurich if the network peers Measurements 0 10k 20k 30k 40k 50k 60k 70k 80k 90k 100k 110k at one of the exchanges in those locations. Smaller operators Zurich/CH Lyon/FR Palermo/IT Berlin/DE Frankfurt/DE Athens/GR Barcelona/ES generally have less control over their routing and will be more Geneva/CH Amsterdam/NL Salvador/BR Milan/IT Karlsruhe/DE London/GB Paris/FR Sofia/BG Madrid/ES RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 23 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

affected by the routing policies of their upstream providers, Figure 24: unless they make their own peering arrangements and individual Paths between origin and destination in Portugal (IPv4) routing decisions. For the most part, the additional distances we see here won’t significantly affect response times; however, making use of local IXPs is generally preferred. It’s also worth remembering that these results are for K-root only, and that DNS clients in the region are likely reaching other root name servers as well that may provide better response times.

We should also note that these results, while considered generally representative, offer only a snapshot of measurements made on a single day in May 2021. Given BGP’s dynamic nature, results can change constantly due to subtle changes in routing.

Braga Regional Traffic Exchange Barcelos Mirandela Again using data from the RIPE Atlas measurement network, we Porto can investigate how some of the networks in the five countries Santa Cruz das Flores Leira exchange traffic with each other, and get some indication of where those exchanges take place. For this experiment, we Lisbon Barreiro performed traceroutes from each RIPE Atlas probe to every other Horta probe in the country, for each of the five countries. Because Ponta Delgada those measurements disclose the IP addresses of the routers Faro involved, we then used RIPE IPmap to geolocate those network resources. This gives some insight into the paths available to traffic, although it does not directly measure traffic.

Routing packets a long way to an exchange point, only to have them travel back to a destination close to the origin, is referred Funchal to as “tromboning”. The farther a path extends from the origin/ destination, the more inefficient the path is. In addition, these detours generally increase costs for the network operator and, more importantly, the additional distance travelled unnecessarily increases the risk of disruptions. It also creates additional dependencies on external providers, which could have regulatory implications.

In all five countries, we see the majority of paths staying within a country’s territory, and the role of local IXPs is visible. In Portugal, no foreign locations are detected. For the others, a RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 24 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

subset of paths detour to locations outside of the country Figure 25: before returning to their domestic destination. Frankfurt, Paths between origin and destination in Greece (IPv4) Amsterdam and London all host major IXPs and are understandable choices for traffic exchange, though from Hamburg a performance point of view they are not necessarily the best. This is especially true for longer distances, as we see happening with local traffic in Greece that is exchanged at Amsterdam farther away locations, rather than relying more heavily on GR-IX, the Greek Internet Exchange. London

With France, this is even more extreme. Although Paris and Frankfurt Marseille (both of which host major IXPs) are heavily used exchange points, some of the paths we observed are really suboptimal, extending as far away as San Francisco to the west and Kiev and Moscow to the east. This significantly Paris Bratislava increases round-trip times, although how significant this Munich is for Internet users in France depends on the amount of traffic flowing over these paths, which is something we cannot measure – instead, we can only discover which route traffic would take if a device in one network wanted to reach a device in another network within the country.

Milan Belgrade

Sofia

Goumanissa Xanthi Komotini

Veroia Thessaloniki Joanina

Athens Magoula ???

Heraklion Makrygialos RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 25 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

Figure 26: Paths between origin and destination in France (IPv4)

Stockholm

Copenhagen

Leeds Dublin Moscow Amsterdam Hamburg Warsaw London

Dunkirk Lille Frankfurt Caen Amiens Metz Munich Lannion Paris Nancy Brest Strassbourg Prague Kiev Rennes Arencon Les Mans Belfort Zurich Besancon Mullhouse Vienna Tours Geneva Budapest Nantes Dijon Dole Milan Odessa Villeurbanne Turin Bordeaux Clemont Aix les Grenoble Ferrant Bains Touleuse San Sebastian Marseille Nice Bastia Seattle Pau Montpellier Cannes Toulon Tirana

Madrid Chicago Lisbon Mumbai New York

Washington Singapore

San Francisco Atlanta

Los Angeles

Miami RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 26 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

Figure 27: Paths between origin and destination in Spain (IPv4) Amsterdam

London

Frankfurt Paris

San Sebastian Marseille

Valldolid Zaragoza Terrassa Mataró Barcelona Madrid Albacete Lisbon Palma de Albacete Valencia Mallorca Gandia Sevilla Allicante Lucena Murcia Malaga Granada

Santa Cruz Las Palmas RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 27 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

Figure 28: Paths between origin and destination in Italy (IPv4) Stockholm

Dublin Amsterdam

London

Frankfurt

Paris Munich Vienna

Zurich Budapest Bolzano Belluno Trentino Geneva Pordenone Nevara Milan Trieste Turin Padua

Rimini Jesi Ancona Marseille Ascoli Piceno San Benedetto del Tronto Rome Pescara Latina Puglia Olbia Naples Monopoli Montoro Tursi Fasano Mandatoriccio Messina Palermo Catania Vittoria RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 28 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

Figure 29: IPv4 address space covered by RPKI

% 100

80

60

40

20

0 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

ES FR GR IT PT

Routing Security of that address space. Using the RIPE NCC’s RIPEstat tool – creates ROAs for its address space. The latest example is Beyond looking into the different routes available to traffic which provides all available information about IP address Vodafone-Panafon in Greece creating ROAs, which shot the originating in the region, we can also investigate routing space, ASNs, and related information for hostnames and percentage up to more than 90%. security in the five countries by looking at how effectively countries – we can see what percentage of a country’s IPv4 IP address space is protected by Resource Public Key address space is covered by ROAs. Infrastructure (RPKI), a security framework that helps network operators make more secure routing decisions. In Portugal and Greece, over 90% of the IPv4 address space registered to organisations in those countries is RPKI uses digital certificates called ROAs (Route Origin covered by ROAs. In the case of Greece, at least, we know Authorisations) to prove a resource holder’s right to that GR-IX strongly encourages its members to adopt RPKI announce IP prefixes (i.e. certifying that the resources were and that most of the country’s providers, even the smaller allocated or assigned to the resource holder by a Regional ones, are present at the IXP, which could help explain Internet Registry). This helps avoid the most common the high adoption rate we see for the country. The graph routing error on the Internet: the accidental announcement shows various sharp increases for all countries, which of an IP prefix by someone who is not the legitimate holder happen when a single, large provider adopts RPKI and RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 29 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

Figure 30: IPv6 address space covered by RPKI

% 80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

ES FR GR IT PT

With IPv6 address space, the percentages covered by ROAs are significantly lower. France is the only exception, with around 70% covered – this was largely due to a single large provider, Orange, creating a ROA for its large /19 allocation of IPv6 address space.

Governments, regulators, IXPs and large service providers can all help encourage smaller players to certify their Internet number resources. They can also encourage best current operational practices around routing security in general to better safeguard the Internet and reduce the opportunity for bad actors to hijack resources and attack the routing system. RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 30 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

Conclusion

Mediterranean Europe has a long history of Internet It’s worth noting that all of the observations in this report development that is reflected today in the region’s open, are based on active paths, and we cannot know what competitive markets, sophisticated infrastructure, skilled “hidden” world of backups exists that would automatically technical communities and high penetration rates. take over in the case of any disruptions. Whatever Enterprises and citizens alike have access to a wide range redundancy does exist would provide the system with of digital services and largely affordable fixed broadband even more resiliency. and mobile connectivity offered by a range of larger and smaller providers. Traffic flows between providers and through multiple exchange points – the result of regulators and operators working together and prioritising shared infrastructure and open access.

The domestic networks in each of the five countries are highly interconnected, providing a good level of resiliency and redundancy. Similarly, each country is connected to the rest of the global Internet by a large number of diverse routes into and out of the country, adding further stability and reducing the potential for disruptions or outages.

Routing is generally optimised for fast response times, although there are a number of cases where more distant exchange points seem to be favoured over domestic options, which unnecessarily increases costs, foreign dependencies and risk of disruption.

Countries in Mediterranean Europe enjoy high Internet penetration rates and large amounts of IPv4 address space. However, further IPv6 deployment will be crucial to connect the millions of remaining households that are yet to be connected as part of the EU’s connectivity goals for 2025 and beyond. It will also be needed to support the roll-out of 5G and the development of IoT and other emerging technologies. RIPE NCC Internet Country Report: Mediterranean Europe | 2021 31 RIPE NETWORK COORDINATION CENTRE

About the RIPE NCC

The RIPE NCC serves as the Regional Internet Registry for Routing Information Service (RIS) Europe, the Middle East and parts of . As such, The Routing Information Service (RIS) has been collecting we allocate and register blocks of Internet number resources and storing Internet routing data from locations around to Internet service providers (ISPs) and other organisations. the globe since 2001. https://www.ripe.net/ris The RIPE NCC is a not-for-profit organisation that works to support the open RIPE community and the development of The data obtained through RIPE Atlas and RIS is the the Internet in general. foundation for many of the tools that we offer. We are always looking at ways to get more RIPE Atlas probes Data Sources connected and to find network operators willing to host The information presented in this report and the analysis RIS collectors. Please see the RIPE Atlas and RIS websites provided is drawn from several key resources: to learn more.

RIPE Registry Other RIPE NCC tools and services This is the record of all Internet number resources (IP t RIPEstat: https://stat.ripe.net/ addresses and AS Numbers) and resource holders that the t RIPE IPmap: https://ipmap.ripe.net/ RIPE NCC has registered. The public-facing record of this t K-root: https://www.ripe.net/analyse/dns/k-root information is contained in the RIPE Database, which can be accessed from https://www.ripe.net External Data Sources We would like to acknowledge Michalis Oikonomakos, Head RIPE Atlas of GR-IX and board member of Euro-IX and GRNOG, for RIPE Atlas is the RIPE NCC’s main Internet measurement providing background information included in this report platform. It is a global network of thousands of around the Internet landscape in Greece. probes that actively measure Internet connectivity. Anyone can access this data via Internet traffic maps, streaming data visualisations, and an API. RIPE Atlas users can also perform customised measurements to gain valuable information about their own networks. https://atlas.ripe.net