20 European CEOs nudge European parliament and EC – results from EC consultation were due in June
ETNO members have sent an open letter from 20 CEOs of European telco groups to the European Commission and members of the European parliament.
Signatories include Timotheus Höttges at Deutsche Telekom, Christel Heydemann at Orange, José María Álvarez-Pallete at Telefónica, Pietro Labriola at Telecom Italia and Margherita Della Valle from Vodafone. It was supported by BT’s outgoing CEO, Philip Jansen, and his successor Allison Kirkby, who is currently CEO at Telia.
Serious pressure needs regulation
The article quotes the letter saying, “Future investments are under serious pressure and regulatory action is needed to secure them. It continues, “A fair and proportionate contribution from the largest traffic generators towards the costs of network infrastructure should form the basis of a new approach.”
They are arguing for a charging mechanism that is transparent and all about accountability, “So operators invest directly into Europe’s digital infrastructure”.
After years of failing to gain traction for what is now called a fair-share contribution, European operators appear to be gaining support within the various governing and executive layers of the European Union. For instance, in June, the European parliament called for a policy framework within which Big Tech could contribute fairly without contravening the somewhat tricky concept of network neutrality.
However, findings from the European Commission’s consultation on the matter, which was launched in February, were due in June and are still pending. In September, the Commission published its first State of the Digital Decade report in which it suggested that €200 billion additional investment would be needed to deliver gigabit coverage across the EU by 2030.
Consolidation and scale
The letter also seized the opportunity to ask regulators to take a more favourable approach to market consolidation – such as Orange acquiring MASMOVIL in Spain – to allow operators to leverage scale.
This vexed issue is going to run and run in Europe. In the meantime, it’s interesting that SKT in South Korea and Netflix have dropped their long-running legal battle and instead opted to offer joint bundles whose pricing presumably meets the needs of all parties.
The South Korean example of successfully forcing Netflix to pay, after ‘breaking the internet’ with its Squid Game TV series, is frequently cited by proponents of a fair-share scheme in Europe as proof the approach can succeed. You can read a more detailed analysis of the SKT situation here.