The European Union is reportedly considering a fund to help reduce the cost of fiber and 5G construction, with large tech companies providing the cash.
Brussels has been grappling for years with the question of whether to make tech giants pay for the bandwidth they use, and despite how tricky any such move would be, the issue isn't going away. Last year, the European Commission said it would open consultations on the matter, and now it looks like it's about to come to fruition.
Bloomberg has seen a draft document that forms part of the European Commission's industry consultation. The paper contains proposals that could require large tech companies to pay into a central fund that would be used to offset the cost of building 5G mobile networks and fiber infrastructure. The newswire said the fund would be set up in addition to mandating that tech giants pay network usage fees to telecoms operators.
The idea was also put forward that there is a threshold above which a company can be designated as a "high traffic generator. Newswire gives a few common examples in this area: Google parent company Alphabet and Netflix.
It notes that the consultation will last two to three months and will be the first real step in any concrete plan to charge for access to OTT networks.
Of course, we've all heard it all before. Despite years of debate, nothing has come of it yet.
The situation for telecom operators has become even more dire. They carry a lot of traffic, in many cases their customers are paying less for it, and the prospect of significant investment in next-generation technology is looming.
It's easy to see why telecom operators want to be able to profit more effectively from their networks. However, given the way the Internet model has evolved, doing so by charging data producers (streaming companies, etc.) rather than consumers feels like an impossibility.
That said, it's safe to say that this won't be the last we hear from Brussels.
