Meta Slams Telco Fee Proposal, Says ISPs Should Pay Their Own Network Costs (arstechnica.com) 37
Proposals to pay for broadband networks by imposing new fees on Big Tech companies "are built on a false premise," Meta executives wrote in a blog post today. From a report: "Network fee proposals do not recognize that our investments in content drive the business model of telecom operators," Meta executives Kevin Salvadori and Bruno Cendon Martin wrote. Meta's comments came a few weeks after Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters spoke out against the proposal being reviewed by European regulators. Meta executives said telecom operators and content application providers (CAPs) "are symbiotic businesses, occupying different but complementary roles in the digital ecosystem. Every year, Meta invests tens of billions of euros in our apps and platforms -- such as Facebook, Instagram, and Quest -- to facilitate the hosting of content. Billions of people go online every day to access this content, creating the demand that allows telecom operators to charge people for Internet access. Our investment in content literally drives the revenue and business model of telecom operators."
Internet service providers in the EU argue that Big Tech companies should pay a "fair share" toward network-building costs. In the US, Federal Communications Commission Republican Brendan Carr claims that "Big Tech has been enjoying a free ride on our Internet infrastructure while skipping out on the billions of dollars in costs needed to maintain and build that network." Big Tech companies don't actually get free access to the Internet, though. Anyone distributing content over the Internet pays their own providers, builds their own network infrastructure, or does some combination of the two. For extremely large companies like Netflix and Meta, investments include building their own content-delivery networks. "Over the last decade, CAPs have collectively invested over $880 billion in global digital infrastructure, including approximately $120 billion a year from 2018 to 2021," Meta's blog post today said. "These infrastructure contributions made by technology companies save telecom operators around $6 billion per year."
Internet service providers in the EU argue that Big Tech companies should pay a "fair share" toward network-building costs. In the US, Federal Communications Commission Republican Brendan Carr claims that "Big Tech has been enjoying a free ride on our Internet infrastructure while skipping out on the billions of dollars in costs needed to maintain and build that network." Big Tech companies don't actually get free access to the Internet, though. Anyone distributing content over the Internet pays their own providers, builds their own network infrastructure, or does some combination of the two. For extremely large companies like Netflix and Meta, investments include building their own content-delivery networks. "Over the last decade, CAPs have collectively invested over $880 billion in global digital infrastructure, including approximately $120 billion a year from 2018 to 2021," Meta's blog post today said. "These infrastructure contributions made by technology companies save telecom operators around $6 billion per year."
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is the EU, where all the wiring is already largely nationalized and ISPs are just a facade on the government infrastructure. They simply want to tax Meta-and-co out of existence, this is just another excuse to get more money.
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They simply want to tax Meta-and-co out of existence
And suddenly that EU-juggernaut looks a lot more appealing...
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This is why I use paid email. Fastmail, in my case, though there are other popular options.
What cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty sure the backbone of the Internet remains unsaturated by a wide enough margin. And if it's the last mile, it's the end customer requesting the data. It sounds ridiculous to charge the provider for last-mile bandwidth, so they are trying to collect on the peering side despite no issues on that end. They just never expected consumers to need all the bandwidth they oversold.
Re:What cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah. They already charge the customers for access AND charge the big tech providers for access. But they want to burn the candle at both ends and in the middle too!
The big providers are a significant reason why the customers are even their customers. If anything, they should be paying the big providers a percentage of the income they get from customers. Such a payment model would really produce a better-behaved and more polite Internet. Sadly, it won't ever happen.
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Pretty sure the backbone of the Internet remains unsaturated by a wide enough margin. And if it's the last mile, it's the end customer requesting the data. It sounds ridiculous to charge the provider for last-mile bandwidth, so they are trying to collect on the peering side despite no issues on that end. They just never expected consumers to need all the bandwidth they oversold.
That's a them problem. Here in the hinterlands, I have a nice Internet connection that I pay for, put up by companies that payed for their delivery system. Go figure.
Big Tech (Score:1, Insightful)
>Big Tech has been enjoying a free ride on our Internet infrastructure while skipping out on the billions of dollars in costs needed to maintain and build that network.
Why are Americans buying into this "fair share" EU bullshit?
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>Big Tech has been enjoying a free ride on our Internet infrastructure while skipping out on the billions of dollars in costs needed to maintain and build that network. Why are Americans buying into this "fair share" EU bullshit?
I know of no American who does. This is just another attempt by the EU to grab free money. Between fining companies and now - You have to pay for your content because you have content, and we don't want to pay to give our people your content.
I have a better ide EU Einsteins. Let your infrastructure remain your infrastructure. Upgrade or do not. If it slows to a crawl it's a you problem. Ban these offending companies and go back to 300 baud modems and Bulletin boards. Problem solved! And every time we da
Bits by the dollar (Score:3)
Everyone should pay a fair price by the datagram with an additional surcharge for datagrams having MSS in excess of 5840 bits.
Originators of each datagram should be billed separately by hop including all applicable taxes and fees by each network operator that forwards their datagrams.
It's about time those exchanging datagrams with their friends across town stop footing the bill for their freeloading neighbors exchanging datagrams with friends and family on the other side of the earth.
Call metering, long distance and international pricing worked out great for the telcos... we should not allow freeloaders to ruin everything!!1!
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Re: Bits by the dollar (Score:2)
Re:Agree with the premise, not the message. (Score:4, Insightful)
ISPs are often telephone companies and cable companies. Guess which telecom sectors are dead or dying? That's right. Home telephone lines and cable TV subscriptions.
They assumed that the internet (or other technologies) would never supplant their "core" businesses but cellular has destroyed the home telephone, and internet streaming is killing off Cable TV. They have to make up the revenue somehow and in a lot of places their customer fees are regulated. And here we are today.
In fairness to the EU... (Score:3, Insightful)
On this one, the EU is pretty much just duplicating the shenanigans that the US allowed when Verizon and Comcast decided to double-dip and extorted Netflix to pay them as well as their own ISP. That set the precedent and should never have been allowed. I pay my ISP. Netflix of Google or Facebook pays their ISP. After that, neither party should have to care. The ISPs need to sort out transit and peering on their own and charge their customers accordingly. No one, in the US, the EU, or anywhere else in the world, should be permitted to double-dip.
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
duplicating the shenanigans that the US allowed when Verizon and Comcast decided to double-dip and extorted Netflix to pay them as well as their own ISP. That set the precedent and should never have been allowed.
While no, that situation shouldn't have happened, using terms like "the US allowed" and "set precedent" is likely to confuse people into thinking the US government was somehow involved when it was not.
The US government, including courts, weren't involved.
It was completely a situation between netflix and those ISPs.
For clarity sake, those ISPs directly extorted netflix and they intentionally degraded the transit points into their own networks that was used by netflix.
The ISPs then lied to their own customers
Telcos want to double dip (Score:4, Informative)
See what you did? (Score:5, Insightful)
You gave Facebook an opportunity to be right. Shame on you, EU.
I hate Meta and the ISP cartel equally (Score:3, Insightful)
Really amazing... (Score:2)
I just find it funny that anyone, literally anyone, is taking this argument seriously in the slightest.
So, you want me to pay you for a service, and then I get the privilege of paying you again when I use the service I already paid for? Why is this even a thing? Did everyone just collectively stop thinking entirely? This isn't an argument, it's the bad punchline to a shitty after school special where the lesson at the end is "listen carefully lest you be played a fool. "
ISPs always want to shift costs. Nice trick. (Score:2)
My current ISP is like so many, continuous increases, but this one is increasing speed to fend off competition.
Which has failed. A fiber to home provider is boring fiber through my neighborhood the end of this month. Advance pricing is attractive. I don't much care if it's DOCSIS 3 or some flavor of fiber, the PHY isn't the problem.
I'll be looking at this service. But I have no love for the incumbent, they will complain that content providers should pay, some costs, but they do. CDNs, low-latency backbones,
It's such a malaligned concecept (Score:1)
I pay for internet to my ISP so I can access content I want to on the internet. Without that content, they wouldn't get an effing drop from me. Prices are crazy where I live for access.
And now they think they're entitled to also be paid by the people who make the content I want to watch that I pay my ISP for access for?
Do they not realize the danger they are in? If they're paying for network infrastructure anyway, just ditch the ISP and run the last mile then. Like get with the program, ISPs only exist beca
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What? "get their bandwidth for free" - please could you elaborate on it a bit further?
As it stands, it looks like nonsense...
wait until starlink gets into this action (Score:2)
They will be able to bypass all of these companies that are currently involved in backhauls around the globe and costing so much.
But even better is when end-ussers start leaving ISPs and go with Starlink who then provides a single connection from home to BigTech, while these ISPs like comcast slowly lose customers.
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We've given these ISPs money multiple times to build out the infrastructure. This last time a few years ago was not the first time. For some reason, the first time ISPs were given money with the promise they would provide everyone with access, it never happened. Then about a decade or so later, they some how convinced government they needed more free money and "pinky swear" this time we will build it, we SWEAR!!!
Just looks like continued government handouts to private corporations at the expense of the taxp
Hey, Siri (Score:2)
He Keeps Using That Word (Score:2)
He keeps using that word. I do not think it means what he thinks it means.
ESPN requires NFL to pay it for airing Super Bowl? (Score:2)