“The idea does not shock me as such”. Arcep President Laure de la Raudière expressed her personal opinion this morning on the idea of a fair sharing which could be imposed on web giants to borrow telecom networks. Statements made during a press conference dedicated to investors.
However, she also expressed a lot of caution on the issue. “You must first have quantified elements to objectify the data”she said. “It would be dangerous to move forward on this without an impact study”. Work is currently underway on this subject at Berec, the body that brings together European telecom regulators. “This must not affect the rules for an open Internet”warned the president.
Parliament opposed to fair sharing
Preserving net neutrality and guaranteeing equal treatment for all players is also at the heart of Parliament’s concerns. It is for this reason that the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) would not have followed this Tuesday, May 17 the proposal of the European Council to make the large online platforms contribute financially. to the networks, according to the site Euroactiv. The French presidency wanted to move the file forward, but most of the political groups in Parliament would have opposed it.
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Commissioners Magrethe Vestager and Thierry Breton have already declared themselves in favor of a fairer distribution of infrastructure costs. Operators have been lobbying for many years to make big players like Google, Meta or Netflix pay some kind of toll because they concentrate most of the internet traffic. A recent study commissioned by operators estimates that the tech giants would cost them nearly 28 billion euros per year because of this intensive use of infrastructure.