Telcos Draw Up Proposal To Charge Big Tech for EU 5G Rollout (reuters.com) 45
Big tech companies accounting for more than 5% of a telecoms provider's peak average internet traffic should help fund the rollout of 5G and broadband across Europe, according to a draft proposal by the telecoms industry. From a report: The proposal is part of feedback to the European Commission which launched a consultation into the issue in February. The deadline for responses is Friday. Alphabet's Google, Apple, Facebook-owner Meta, Amazon, Netflix and TikTok would most likely be hit with fees, according to industry estimates. Google, Apple, Meta, Netflix, Amazon and Microsoft together account for more than half of data internet traffic.
The document, which was reviewed by Reuters and has not been published, was compiled by telecoms lobbying groups GSMA and ETNO. They represent 160 operators in Europe, including Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica and Telecom Italia. Telecom operators have lobbied for years for leading technology companies to help foot the bill for 5G and broadband roll-out, saying that they create a huge part of the region's internet traffic. This is the first time they have tried to define a threshold for who should pay.
The document, which was reviewed by Reuters and has not been published, was compiled by telecoms lobbying groups GSMA and ETNO. They represent 160 operators in Europe, including Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica and Telecom Italia. Telecom operators have lobbied for years for leading technology companies to help foot the bill for 5G and broadband roll-out, saying that they create a huge part of the region's internet traffic. This is the first time they have tried to define a threshold for who should pay.
Or to put it another way (Score:5, Insightful)
The telcos are taking the piss. I'm no fan of the big tech companies but why should they fork out for this? Do road builders expect car manufacturers to fund them? The telcos are free to stick in 4G if they want and slowly want their customers bye bye over the next few years.
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Imagine if the
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If I managed a large big tech company like Apple or Netflix, I would just slow down that Telco's users to very slow speeds, and charge the telcos peering fees to make up for the loss in revenue.
Users would hardly notice, because those Telcos already have deliberately poor, overloaded peering points, with sometimes abysmal bandwidth per user during peak hours - even on wired clients. That is to promote their own media content services, where they cash in for both the bandwidth and the content, while making the media services from all competitors seem less attractive.
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And then the EU would fine you big bucks until you stopped doing it. The EU is not dumb, and EU rules don't work like US laws where you can come up with some clever work-around that technically complies while ignoring the spirit of the thing.
By the way, Tailor Swift probably does pay the venue. When an artist does a tour and sells the tickets themselves, they usually pay the venue to use the stage. The venue will cash in with drink sales and the like, but in principle it's usually the ticket seller who pays
Re:Or to put it another way (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems like the Telco are dependent on the "tech" services to create demand for their 5G. If it was just consumer-to-consumer texting there wouldn't be a need for 5G. It seems like the tech companies could ask for payment for making their services available with the carriers.
For (a US-based) example, Google or Netflix could demand a payment from AT&T for permitting their services to be carried on the AT&T network. It would be pretty hard to sell AT&T if Netflix wasn't available on it.
The cable companies already pay "network TV" to make their channels available. (OK, that didn't work out so well for consumers either.)
Re: Or to put it another way (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember how 5G was hyped up so much it was going to change the world? Yeah, so it turns out it's the same shit except faster. Well who'd have guessed.
I guess the marketdroids missed a trick when gigabit ethernet came out.
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For me, it is worse in rural areas. :(
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Well, yes, the government builds roads and does in fact expect car manufacturers to fund them via taxation.
Bollocks (Score:2)
Google, Apple, Meta, Netflix, Amazon and Microsoft together account for more than half of data internet traffic.
Really? You mean Google sending data to Google, Apple sending data to Apple, and so on? No? You mean Google sending data to users, Apple sending data to users... users that you charge for the service?
Talk about GTFOH.
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Google, Apple, Meta, Netflix, Amazon and Microsoft together account for more than half of data internet traffic.
No, their customers (you and me) account for that traffic. And we are already paying for Internet access.
Google, Apple, Meta, Netflix, Amazon and Microsoft also already pay a lot of money for Internet access -- otherwise we wouldn't be able to access YouTube, Facebook, Amazon. etc...
The Telecom companies are already getting paid twice for the same thing, and now they are trying to devise a scam to get paid a third time.
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users that you charge for the service?
The infrastructure is expensive, so expensive that it will not happen by just users paying 35 euros a month for the cable TV / internet access or 5 euros a month for the mobile phone service (this is what I pay). Currently, the 5G infrastructure has been paid by the EC (= the taxpayer) in an investment estimated to 700 million euros ( https://digital-strategy.ec.eu... [europa.eu] ). They did not achieve the intended level of deployment and they don't want to inject much more taxpayer money into this programme, so they
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I found the problem "5 euros a month for the mobile phone service". That is unsustainable. Single line in USA is $40-60/mth. 5eu a month is far too cheap to pay for the 5G roll out, they are providing that service at a loss.
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Indeed low prices that's the reason, but they are not seen as a problem (low prices are an enjoyable feature). It makes it difficult to deploy the 5G infrastructure (which the telcos have legal obligations to deploy). Telcos are obliged to provide universal service (= same quality in city and remote areas) and affordable contracts, and now are obliged to deploy expensive 5G. In compensation for their obligations, they have been receiving taxpayer money. The new idea is that the money will going from big ban
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Why don't the people with phones simply pay direct rates high enough to support their own phone network? Why are these indirect subsidies needed?
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In the EU the general principle is that companies are expected to contribute to costs if they profit from something. Laying all the burden on the consumer isn't accepted.
I appreciate that Americans find this very difficult to understand. It's actually quite un-American, which is fine because this isn't America. American tech companies don't like it though, and Americans seem to see it as an attack on their way of life.
It's not though, it's just that in Europe the politicians represent the interests of the p
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In the EU the general principle is that companies are expected to contribute to costs if they profit from something. Laying all the burden on the consumer isn't accepted.
Except that's not how anything works. The consumer always gets all the burden. The corporations don't reduce profit when they have to pay for things, they just charge more. It winds up costing everyone more than if the government subsidized whatever it is, because there's profit baked into it.
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That's the lie they use to scare you into not regulating them. Anything that harms their profits will be charged back to you.
Of course if they could just raise prices they would have done so already. They aren't keeping prices down because you were generous enough not to make them pay for infrastructure. They are charging the precisely calculated amount for maximum profitability.
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If you charge all of the big guys more, then all of them will raise their prices at the same time, and they will blame it on the government — and they won't be wrong, either.
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Charge the users who use the service, that's how it works.
Don't be charging me if I'm not using the service, which is what winds up happening if you charge the corporation. They just pass the costs on to me.
If there's a public interest in the service being cheaper, still don't charge the corporations for that, it still punishes anyone buying their kit. Charge the taxpayer.
If you run out of money, take it away from the rich. If you don't, someone with torches and pitchforks will anyway
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Charge the users who use the service, that's how it works.
I agree but there is a matter of point of view. This project of regulation considers "the user" of the infrastructure to be the big companies. I personally consider "the user" to be "the consumers who actually use lots of bandwidth" (e.g. viewers of video streaming). The first interpretations support charging the contents provider, the second interpretation supports charging the consumers of the contents providers. In the end both are the same as the cost is passed onto the user).
still don't charge the corporations for that, it still punishes anyone buying their kit. Charge the taxpayer.
This is where we disagree.
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The EU does not interfere with hours per week or retirement. The only limitation EU enforces is prohibition of > 48 hours per week ( https://europa.eu/youreurope/b... [europa.eu] ), which is an international regulation (ILO C001 https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normle... [ilo.org] ) approved in 1919, long before EU or any of its predecessors existed.
We are not currently bailing anyone. Countries who can't manage their own finances get non-compliance procedures. Every EU country has to submit their project of state budget for EC analys
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They chose to tax the content providers, who only interest some people (market share of Netflix in France is 10%) but consume a large fraction of the BW.
No, their users consume that bandwidth. They're the ones requesting the data and without those requests none of it would be sent over the wire.
ISPs already have a business plan (Score:2)
WTF EU?
ISP are in the business of charging customers for access. If ISPs are not making enough money, then they can charge more for access - simple. This attempt to extract money from corporations that are not your customer is crazy.
My neighbors are the ones that look at the outside of my house all of the time, I'd like them to pay to paint it. How do you expect that to work?
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My neighbors are the ones that look at the outside of my house all of the time, I'd like them to pay to paint it. How do you expect that to work?
Man, I love this idea applied to holiday decorations too. Pay up, neighbors, those RGB LED strands and festive inflatable dragons aren't going to buy themselves!
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You want my lawn mowed? Pay up!
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Did you offer to let him mow it?
What a great idea! (Score:1)
So the tech companies will pay for it, and Europeans will have free 5G? Sounds wonderful!
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Cost Savings (Score:2)
The best part is that 5G is more efficient than 4G as far as bandwidth and number of supported devices per given bandwidth, so telcos actually save money as they need less hardware to support the same number of devices as 4G. They can pay for the upgrades themselves.
About time. (Score:3)
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They are not non-profits but are submitted to Public Service obligations (codified in Directive 2009/140/CE https://eur-lex.europa.eu/lega... [europa.eu] ) : provide universal service (high speed internet in every corner of the country), affordable service to low income citizens. The "Public investment in network" (taxpayer money given to them) is a compensation for their obligations. As part of the EC strategy on 5G, telcos are obliged to deploy 5G everywhere, but contrary to expectations the adoption rate has been lo
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And now you have discovered the problem with 5G. To a consumer 5G vs 4G makes little to no difference. Who benefits from 5G? The cellular service providers and the equipment manufacturers. They are who all the benefits accrue to. The cellular service providers benefit because they can pack even more people into the bandwidth they own. And the equipment manufacturers get to sell another round of equipment. What does the consumer get out of this? Pretty much nothing except a higher bill to pay for all of tha
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Pretty much the only consumer benefit I see to 5G is that a few people can walk around now and watch Netflix outdoors.
I can do that with 4G.
Hertz should help fund GM? (Score:2)
Does this mean my data becomes cheaper? (Score:3)
Probably not.
I already paid for my data connection, bandwidth, and data fair use policy (basically, no data cap). I assume what they charge me would be enough to cover their expenses and the bandwidth I consume with streaming from Netflix, with some profit to spare.
To me this seams more like a money-grab. If Netflix is forced to raise their subscription fee because of this, they can expect me to send the Telecoms a request to refund me the difference.
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This seems similar to the EU ISPs who were demanding that big tech pays them extra.
I thought EU was a saner version of USA usually.
But recently it seems they seem to be losing that sanity.
Just have everyone pay whatever prices for whatever plans / bandwidth they are contracting for - big user like big tech may end up paying XXXX for higer bandwidth for their servers to connect to bigger backbones / speeds, etc. Home consumers pay alot lesser for lesser bandwidth.
And the interconnects get their own contracts
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they can expect me to send the Telecoms a request to refund me the difference.
Let us know how that goes.
What else am I paying the ISP for? (Score:2)
What does the ISP offer? They hardly offer support when their service fails under their control.