European operators seek cost sharing with Web companies

CEOs of Europe’s leading telecom operators published an open statement calling on the European Commission to address their perceived imbalance in cost sharing for network infrastructure. The telecom CEOs argue that the largest generators of Internet traffic are not contributing enough to cover the costs of the networks needed to deliver their services.

“A fair contribution would benefit first and foremost consumers, as it would help enable faster and more inclusive roll-out, bringing more coverage, resilience and quality. It would also benefit SMEs, who recently voiced the need for tech companies to “adequately contribute” to roll-outvii: 5G and fibre are key to SMEs’ competitiveness. In addition, a fair contribution would send a clear financial signal for streamers in relation to the data growth associated with their use of scarce network resources. This could generate significant energy savings and help achieve net zero, both of which are so important at this time. Finally, we expect it also to benefit tech companies, who rely the most on massive network upgrades, as we move to an age of open and connectivity-enabled metaverses.”

Signatories: