The European Union (EU) will open the door to a assessment for big tech companies to shoulder some of the costs of networks of the telecommunications, a demand demanded for years by the operators. sources of the European Comission They have confirmed to EL PERIÓDICO that this Thursday at noon they will launch a consultation, the first step so that this charge can end up becoming law.
The European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Bretonassured two weeks ago that he would announce this proposal next Monday, February 27, during the opening day of the technology fair Mobile World Congress (MWC). “Wait for my speech in Barcelona“, he assured. Breton will then give more details of a consultation that will be presented to the press on Thursday.
The choice of Mobile is not trivial. There, the head of Industry of the EU will participate in a talk on telecommunications, although the schedule is not clear. The Brussels proposal is in line with what large European operators such as telephone, Orange, vodafone, Deutsche Telekom either Telecom Italy They have been claiming for years. Industry sources assured Reuters that the consultation is clear support from the European institutions.
Web traffic domain
The ‘telecos’ regret that for years they have had to make multimillion-dollar investments to build the infrastructure of connection networks to Internet broadband and 5G. The largest digital service providers (Google, Goal, Netflix, Manzana, Amazon and Microsoft) use this infrastructure to mobilize 60% of all network traffic, according to data from the sector, but even so they do not contribute to these investments.
The pandemic led to a boom in connections that has made it increasingly expensive for telemarketers to maintain data transmission. The use that these six companies make of the internet grew 33% between 2019 and 2021, according to data from Sandvine, a network and application intelligence company. This has led the ‘telcos’ to accelerate the pressure on Brussels to tax the technology for the use of the network.
Rejection of the ‘Big Tech’
On the other hand, the giants of Silicon Valley They have denounced that this toll on Internet traffic could violate the European standards of net neutrality, which state that all users should be treated equally. “All traffic that circulates through a network is treated in the same way, regardless of the content, service, application, device or address of the sender or receiver”, reads the standard approved in 2016 by the Regulatory Body Europeans of Electronic Communications.
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The fact that the EU presents this consultation does not mean that it becomes law. As reported by Reuters, the report will be debated for about 12 weeks. Later, the European Commission will propose a regulation that will have to be debated and reviewed both by the countries of the community club and by the legislators. Bretón has shown himself confident that a resolution will be agreed upon before the end of the year.
working day in #Brussels. The telecommunications sector is ready to work closely with the European institutions to build a fairer and more prosperous future. pic.twitter.com/w1r6Wxm4xM
— JM Alvarez-Pallete (@jmalvpal) February 10, 2023
On February 10, the executive president of Telefónica, Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete —also president since January 2022 of the GSMAorganizer of MWC— met with the European authorities in Brussels. “The telecommunications sector is ready to collaborate closely with the European institutions to build a fairer and more prosperous future,” he tweeted after the meeting.