EU telecoms sign letter to European Commission demanding tech firms pay network fees

Europe’s biggest telecommunications firms are demanding big tech companies whip out their wallets.

The Financial Times reported that executives at 20 telecoms, including BT, Deutsche Telekom, and Telefónica, have signed an open letter to the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, and members of the European parliament demanding they take action to ensure tech firms pay a “fair” amount to use their networks.

“Future investments are under serious pressure and regulatory action is needed to secure them,” the companies wrote in the letter, according to the Times. “A fair and proportionate contribution from the largest traffic generators towards the costs of network infrastructure should form the basis of a new approach.”

While the telecom companies left EU officials to figure out the details, they urged that any proposal should ensure the “very largest traffic generators” pay fees with a focus on “accountability and transparency on contributions…so that operators invest directly into Europe’s digital infrastructure.” The letter claims tech firms profit while paying “almost nothing for data transport.”

Tech companies have insisted their users already have to pay for their own connections, and that network fees are little more than attempted shakedowns. Daniel Friedlaender, the head of tech lobbying group CCIA Europe, told the Times the telecom operators are “trying to fool Europe into providing them with extra cash” and demanding they be “fully subsidized by the same firms who have helped them grow and thrive.”

The European Commission has already been gathering feedback on the EU’s connectivity sector and communications infrastructure. A network fee proposal is reportedly one of the options they’re examining.

“This is a complex issue and any decision should be made by understanding the underlying facts and figures,” a spokesperson for the commission told the Wall Street Journal.

Critics of the proposal also include open internet advocates who say network fees violate the principles of net neutrality and would give telecoms more leverage to abuse their positions as gatekeepers. They also say tech firms would simply pass the costs on to customers.

India’s largest telecom operators recently issued a similar proposal to TRAI, India’s telecommunications regulator, TechCrunch reported. The Asia Internet Coalition, a trade group which claims companies like Meta and Amazon as members, rebuked the proposal as an attempt to create a system where telecom service providers could “demand compensation from OTT service providers in the form of revenue sharing or network usage fees.”