Stéphane Richard may be on the start, he continues to defend tooth and nail the interests of Orange. He distinguished himself this week by his lobbying with the European Commission to obtain that GAFAM contribute to the financing of Internet infrastructures.
“There is a need to rebalance the contribution of everyone in Europe”he confirmed at a press conference following the publication of Orange’s annual financial results on Thursday.
“The weight of infrastructure is entirely due to the telecom sector, which is subject to multiple constraints of all kinds”, he stormed. An anomaly he intends to fight. ” These major American players, innovative and efficient, ultimately take advantage of our considerable investments in fiber optics, 4G or 5G, to push their services without contributing to them at all (..) Everyone remembers the sentence of this friendly Eric Schmidt, former Google boss: you make the investments, I make the profits” again denounced Stéphane Richard.
There would be an emergency according to the operators
The boss of Orange has therefore taken the initiative of a forum published in the FinancialTimes this week, together with its counterparts Vodafone, Telefonica and Deutsche Telekom. It is called Call on major content platforms to contribute to the cost of the European digital infrastructure that supports their services. An entire program.
The signatories affirm that “Video streaming, gaming and social media hosted by a handful of digital content platforms account for over 70% of all network data traffic”. A traffic that is destined to grow every year. However, operators would be forced to invest more and more with less and less return. The text bluntly states that the situation would no longer be viable and that this would jeopardize the continuation of infrastructure development.
Korean ISP SK’s fight against Netflix
What the operators dream of is a kind of toll that the GAFAM would pay to borrow their networks. The example of South Korea encourages them to do so. National ISP SK Telecom has been battling Netflix for several years. He demands that the streaming service pay him 75 million euros to finance his infrastructure. The case was taken to court and the huge success of the series Squid Game amplified the controversy. To the point that the country is now thinking about legislating. In the United States also the question would be debated again.
European Commissioner for Industrial and Digital Policy Thierry Breton has listened attentively to the demands of operators. But without concrete effect for the moment. “We are now calling on EU lawmakers to urgently introduce regulation to make this principle a reality”claim the protesters.
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The political window is conducive
This is not the first forum of this type. Last November, the lobby of European operators, the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ETNOA), called on Brussels to tax GAFAM. Because these claims are old. So why are they resurfacing now? Question of political timing.
In France, the presidential campaign has begun. Among the proposals made to candidates by the French Federation of Telecoms, is prominently the idea of reducing the taxation of telecom players to bridge the gap with “non-European Internet players”.
But above all, our country chairs the Council of the European Union. What makes say to an analyst questioned by the FinancialTimes. “I think we will see more positions like this, especially during the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union, given that they have been quite critical of Big Tech in the past”.
As for Stéphane Richard, it was probably now or never to come forward. He must leave his place to the new general manager Christel Heydemann on April 4, even if he will remain president of the group until May 19. A last stand of honor in a way.
Sources: FinancialTimesthe French Telecoms Federation