European Commissioner: large tech companies must contribute to telecom networks

European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager believes that large tech companies such as Meta, Alphabet and Netflix should contribute financially to existing telecom networks. Such parties would generate a lot of internet traffic, which for the time being must be facilitated by providers.

In response to objections from lobby group ETNO, Vestager is going to investigate whether such a contribution should be made mandatory reports Reuters. “I think there is a problem that we need to focus on and that problem is the fair contribution to telecommunications networks,” said the European Commissioner. “We see that parties that generate a huge amount of internet traffic depend on [netwerken] without actually contributing to this infrastructure.”

Globally, tech giants such as Meta, Alphabet, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft are survey of European Public Telecommunications Network Operators for more than 55 percent of all data traffic. The organization therefore proposes that tech companies make a contribution of 20 billion euros to telecom providers.

This would compensate for the 500 billion euros that providers have invested in network infrastructure in Europe over the past ten years. The proposed amount could contribute up to EUR 72 billion to the European economy by 2025, according to ETNO, resulting in an estimate of 840,000 additional jobs.