Smaller EU telcos say network fee aimed at Big Tech will hurt competition

freenet AG

30/08/2022 21:29

By Foo Yun Chee
    BRUSSELS, Aug 30 (Reuters) - EU regulators' plan to make
Alphabet's  GOOGL.O  Google, Meta  FB.O  and Netflix  NFLX.O 
bear some of the costs of the bloc's telecoms network would
distort the telecoms market and harm competition, a group of
small telecoms operators said on Tuesday.
    The warning from MVNO Europe, whose members include
Comcast's  CMCSA.O  pay TV company Sky which has its own mobile
service, German mobile operator Freenet  FNTGn.DE  and Poste
Italiane unit PosteMobile, underlined the stakes involved.
    Big players such as Deutsche Telekom  DTEGn.DE , Orange
 ORAN.PA  and Telefonica  TEF.MC  have long complained about
tech rivals free-riding on their networks.
    Their lobbying paid off when the European Commission earlier
this year said it would propose legislation by year-end that
would force tech rivals to partly fund network costs.
    Such moves could cause more harm than good, MVNO Europe said
on its website.
    "We fear that the suggested network investment contributions
would seriously harm competition on telecom markets, harm MVNOs
directly, and ultimately be detrimental to both consumers and
business users," it said.
    MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators) do not own network
infrastructure but piggyback on bigger rivals to provide their
services to their customers.
    "Materialization of the suggestions in legislation could
lead to disruption of current peering and transit markets which
are currently functioning competitively on the basis of
well-established commercial practices," the group said.
    "This proposal could bring to the unwished result that
largest telecom providers will have their network services paid
not only twice (by customers and by content and application
providers), but even three times (that is also by alternative
operators, which however are already paying network access
fees)," it said.
     Digital rights activists have also warned of the risk to
Europe's net neutrality rules that support an open internet.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2XU1R3
    France, Italy and Spain in a joint proposal earlier this
month backed the idea.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2ZD2KY

 (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
 ((foo.yunchee@thomsonreuters.com; +32 2 287 6844; Reuters
Messaging: foo.yunchee.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))