Tech Giants Object to Covering Cost of EU Telecom Upgrades

The European Commission is trying to determine who should pay to upgrade Europe’s telecom system.

As Reuters reported Thursday, Europe’s telecoms have long argued that the world’s Big Tech companies should cover at least some of the cost, saying companies like Meta, Google, Apple and Amazon account for more than half the region’s internet traffic.

Meta, however, says otherwise, objecting to the premise of the European Commission’s 12-week consultation into the matter.

“Meta invests tens of billions of dollars in our apps and platforms every year to facilitate the hosting of content, creating enormous value across the digital ecosystem,” a company spokesperson told Reuters.

“By not recognising that value flows both ways between telecoms companies and content-hosting platforms, this consultation is based on a false premise.”

Meta’s comments follow statements last year by Google executive Matthew Brittin, who said Big Tech firms shouldn’t have to pay for the cost of internet service providers’ (ISP) network-upgrade in the EU.

“Introducing a sender-pays principle is not a new idea, and would upend many of the principles of the open Internet,” said Brittin, president of Google’s business and operations in Europe.

“These arguments are similar to those we heard 10 or more years ago and we have not seen new data that changes the situation.”

Brittin argued that Google already invests in network infrastructure both on its own and in partnership with others, thus easing the strain on broadband network operators.

PYMNTS noted at the time that 13 large European telecom companies had called on Big Tech to start chipping in on the upgrade costs for ISPs. They said too much of network traffic had been monetized and generated from Big Tech platforms, requiring “continuous, intensive” network investments and planning.

European Commission industry chief Thierry Breton pointed to the significant investments involved in 5G and broadband, and said he was not targeting any specific company.

“The burden of these investments is heavier and heavier,” he said during a news briefing. “And that is in part because of a low return on investment in the telecoms sector, the increase of the cost of raw materials, and the world geopolitical context, the cost of energy, of course, because that has a big role to play.”

The news is happening as EU regulators are putting continued pressure on Big Tech firms. Last week, those companies released monthly active user (MAU) numbers to comply with the EU’s new Digital Services Act (DSA).

The act requires online platforms and search engines to publish MAU figures to show whether they meet the threshold — 45 million users — at which they are classified as “very large online platforms” (VLOPs) and therefore subject to DSA regulations.

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