Google has rejected a push by European telecom companies such as Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica and others to get Big Tech to contribute to network costs because Big Tech are freeriding on their networks.
According to Matt Brittin, Google’s President of EMEA Business and Operations, this is a ten-year-old idea that would shake up many of the principles of the open internet and would be bad for consumers. It could also jeopardize Europe’s net neutrality or open internet access.
He also explained that Google is already investing millions of dollars in internet infrastructure to improve efficiency for telecoms providers by carrying traffic 99% of the time.
According to Brittin, Google invested over 23 billion euros in capital expenditure in 2021, most of it in infrastructure, including six major data centers in Europe, 20 subsea cables worldwide, five of which are in Europe, and caches for storing digital content within local networks at 20 locations in Europe, which will help these telecoms providers operate more efficiently.
The comments come as the European Commission has said it will seek feedback from the telecoms and technology industry on the issue in the coming months before making legislative proposals.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.