BRUSSELS, June 1 (Reuters) - The Dutch government has stepped up its criticism of a push by EU telecoms operators to get Big Tech to help pay for the rollout of 5G and broadband, saying claims that unchecked data growth has pushed up network costs are not backed by facts.
"In reality, contrary to all these persistent claims, the strong growth of Internet data in the past did not confront large telecom operators with higher network costs," the paper seen by Reuters said.
"In reality the total network costs have remained constant despite the consistently high growth over the last decades, whilst the profit margins of European telecom operators have improved significantly over the last decade," the paper said.
They said direct payments are unjustified as end-users already pay for their access line including network traffic costs while such intervention would affect the functioning of the internet.
"The synergies for such cross-border mergers to telecom operators are generally considered relatively limited, whilst there don’t seem to be convincing benefits to wider society."
Persons:
Foo Yun Chee, Chizu
Organizations:
EU, Big Tech, European Commission, Reuters, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, Telecom Italia, Google, Apple Inc, Inc, Netflix Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Microsoft Corp, Netflix's, Thomson
Locations:
BRUSSELS, Luxembourg, Orange, Dutch