Operators want to make Web giants pay for the use they make of their networks. The European Union is launching a major consultation on this subject.
Every day, Internet users mainly use a few online services to communicate with loved ones or watch video streaming content, and these uses represent a significant part of the available bandwidth.
Operators want GAFAN to put their hands in their pockets to invest in the network
For operators, the subject has been sensitive for many years already. The latter want to make the GAFANs (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Netflix) pay for part of the use of their networks in order to participate in the financing of the annual investments made to respond to the increase in traffic.
A study commissioned by the European Association of Operators (ETNO), explains that the various players will spend between 15 and 28 billion euros per year, solely to increase the capacity of Internet networks to collect new uses, including video in particular. streaming, which consumes a lot of bandwidth.
The operators are not talking about a tax as such, but want to bring together the main American platforms around the table to discuss an amount that would be allocated to them each year.
In case the biggest companies do not wish to play the game, an authority would define a ” fair and proportionate contribution in order to compel them to pay part of their turnover.
A European-wide discussion that promises to be tense
If Thierry Breton, European commissioner for the internal market and digital technology, was able earlier this year to appear to support operators, he is now adopting a more measured position on this subject by proposing a ” broad consultation at European level during the first half of 2023, before a legislative process that will take us to 2025.
For their part, the GAFANs do not want to hear of a contribution. Netflix explains that it has installed 700 CDN servers directly with operators to avoid saturating the long-distance network. Google indicates for its part that its investments approached 30 billion dollars for the year 2021 alone.
The subject is also reacting to associations for the defense of individual freedoms. The latter fear that the neutrality of the Web is endangered with such a measure, which could favor the richest players to the detriment of the smallest sites.
Source : The world
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