Chief Executives of Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, and 11 other prominent European telecom companies have stated that U.S. tech giants should pay a part of the costs of building Europe’s telecom infrastructure as they use them extensively.

The call comes as the country’s telecoms industry faces heavy requirements of investments for 5G, fiber, and cable networks to support the cloud & data services provided by platforms such as Netflix, Facebook, and YouTube.

The CEOs in a joint statement said that a substantial portion of the network traffic is created and monetized by these big tech platforms, but it requires regular and intensive network investments & planning by the telecommunications sector.

Notably, Europe's telco sector had investments worth USD 59.4 billion (EUR 52.5 billion) last year, which marked a six-year high in the industry.

This network model – which allows citizens to experience the new era of digital transformation will only be sustainable and economic if big tech companies pay up their share of the network costs, they said.

CEOs of leading telcos including Telefonica, Swisscom, Orange, KPN, Telekom Austria, BT Group, Vivacom, Telenor, Altice Portugal, Proximus, and Telia Company are among the signatories to the letter. The executives have not explicitly mentioned any tech firms by name, although it is understandable that they have industry majors like Facebook & Netflix in mind.

Touching on another focal point of the matter, the CEOs criticized that the EU governments’ practice of having high spectrum prices and auctions as they believe that these approaches artificially force unsustainable entrants into the industry.

Moreover, the EU lawmakers' plans to drop surcharges imposed on intra-EU calls were also not received well by the CEOs who view this space as a revenue source from business users.

EU lawmakers will have to present and discuss their proposal with EU countries before it can be finalized and may face several issues when coming to a unanimous agreement.

Source Credits –

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/europes-telcos-want-us-tech-giants-to-help-fund-network-costs/article37746048.ece