Google, Netflix, Facebook and the big streaming platforms cash billions thanks to the data exchanged on a network they don’t pay for: the hard attack of the European phone companies
It costs a lot of money to keep up and run the data transmission networks, that is to say the Internet, but the biggest slice of the earnings from traffic goes into the coffers of Netflix, Google, Facebook and the other tech giants. Now, however, it’s time for these giants to pay their fair share to keep the infrastructure alive. This is what 13 CEOs of as many European phone companies are about to ask for, according to Reuters, which reports the news exclusively, through a joint document signed by their CEOs. Reuters cites 11 out of 13 signatories: Telefonica, Orange, KPN, BT Group, Telekom Austria, Vivacom, Proximus, Telenor, Altice Portugal, Telia Company and Swisscom. It is not known, however, if among the two remaining there are Italian operators and this, in fact, would be very interesting to know because in Italy there has already been a first experiment of collaboration between a streaming platform that generates a lot of traffic and network operators: the one that has seen DAZN invest of its own pocket to strengthen the Italian network with the so-called DAZN Edge. But the Telco CEOs are not only angry with Google & Co, in the document there would also be criticism of the European authorities.
The Telco against the tech giants
Reuters publishes some excerpts of the letter, from which emerges the crux of the matter: “A large and growing part of network traffic is generated and monetized by large tech platforms, but requires continuous investment and intensive planning by the telecommunications sector. This model, which allows European citizens to enjoy the fruits of digital transformation, can only be sustainable if the big tech platforms share equally in the costs of the network.”
Message very clear: if only the Telcos spend and only the platforms earn, then the business model collapses after a while. Since the arrival of the big subscription streaming platforms, in fact, the data traffic exchanged on the Internet has skyrocketed. Netflix YouTube and the other companies that make big profits with this system, according to the Telco, would unload the costs of the infrastructure on the telephone operators.
Operators that, it’s true, collect the price of telephone subscriptions but don’t take a penny from the huge streaming cake. As if that wasn’t enough, then, the EU has taken several billions out of the phone companies’ budgets in recent years.
The Telcos against the EU
To the European institutions, instead, the 13 phone companies reproach the very high costs of radio frequencies for 5G always assigned at auction (as in the case of the frequencies of the 700 band, auctioned in Italy in 2018 for 6.5 billion euros).
The EU, then, canceled by law the costs of international roaming within Europe, taking away at least 2 billion in 4 years from the phone companies.