Network fee proposals are built on a false premise because they do not recognise the value that CAPs create for the digital ecosystem, nor the investments we make in the infrastructure that underpins it.įacebook/Meta has no shortage of dumb problems ( including clumsy and sometimes predatory missteps on efforts to shore up global broadband access), but they’re correct here. Proposals by some European telecom operators to impose network fees on Content Application Providers (CAPs) such as Meta are not the solution. Yet here we are, having learned nothing from decades of policy experience.īoth Google and Netflix have come out swinging against the EU’s Big Tech tax, pointing out how the claim they “don’t pay their fair share” and should be directly responsible for paying to bridge the digital divide is telecom industry nonsense.Īnd now Meta’s Kevin Salvadori, VP of Network, and Bruno Cendon Martin, Senior Director of Wireless Technologies, have issued a blog post also pointing out that Facebook has spent more than $100 billion of capital expenditures and operational expenditures on global digital infrastructure: But throwing billions of dollars at telecom monopolies (without reforming existing broadband subsidy programs) in the hopes that this just magically fixes the digital divide this time is a fool’s errand. It’s effectively yet another effort by the telecom lobby to “double dip,” dressed up as a serious, adult policy proposal. Two, it’s being driven by telecom monopolies with long, rich histories of bullshit on this subject (not to mention subsidy fraud).
One, the whole effort is based on the lie that Big Tech companies “ don’t pay their fair share” for broadband (in reality they pay countless billions for bandwidth, cloud storage, CDNs, transit, and even undersea cables). We’ve repeatedly noted there are several problems with the proposal. It’s effectively an extension of the net neutrality wars, in which telecom monopolies insisted they should be paid even more money if you want to access their networks - for no coherent reason. All being pushed by EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, himself a former CEO of France Telecom. In reality, the effort is a lobbying gambit by telecom giants looking to offload their network deployment and maintenance costs onto somebody else. On the surface, the proposal is part of the EU’s efforts to craft digital policies for the next few decades, with an eye on shoring up lagging broadband access.
In case you’d missed it, the EU is currently proposing a telecom-industry backed plan to effectively tax Big Tech companies, and throw that money at Big Telecom companies for broadband expansion.
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