Big-Tech should share in the cost of data traffic
European telecommunications companies: Data-guzzling corporations are costing the industry dearly
Ibrahim Al-TarikMay 9, 2025
The EU should make big tech and video streaming companies pay at least part of the estimated €28 billion they're costing Europe's telecoms giants by overusing network infrastructure, according to a new industry report.
A small number of video, social media and technology companies - including the Facebook owner - account for more than 55% of all mobile and broadband network traffic, according to research commissioned by the Association of European Telecoms Network Operators and conducted by consultancy Axon Meta, Netflix and Amazon. This costs the European telecommunications companies between 15 and 28 billion euros annually, it said.
If some of these data-guzzling tech giants handed telcos €20 billion to match and boost network investment, it could create 840,000 new jobs by 2025 and significantly reduce energy consumption in the industry, the report says, as it will drive new spending on... would spur 5G and fiber optics.
"We want to have an open dialogue with policymakers, consumers and technology companies on how to address the specific imbalances in internet traffic markets," said Lise Fuhr, Director General of ETNO.
Telcos are locked in a multi-year debate with regulators over whether big tech companies, which consume a significant chunk of network data, should be charged for some of the costly infrastructure upgrades being made by mobile and broadband providers, including the Billions being spent on 5G and full fiber optic rollout.
Executives have pointed to a recent case in South Korea, where a court ordered Netflix to pay for a surge in traffic over the SK broadband network late last year, sparked by the success of the Squid Game series.
They hope EU lawmakers will be sympathetic to their cause, citing a statement by the European Commission as part of its Digital Rights Statement that "all market participants benefiting from the digital transformation must make a fair and reasonable contribution to the costs of [should] provide public goods, services and infrastructure".
The most effective way for the Commission to request a contribution from big tech companies would be to create a mechanism for direct payments to infrastructure projects or to the telecoms companies themselves, the report says.
Setting up a separate investment fund or levying a tax would make the process too complex and difficult to communicate to the general public, the report said.
The report shows that European telecoms groups have invested €500 billion in modernizing and improving their fixed and mobile networks over the past decade and are in a far worse financial position than their peers in the technology sector. The eight largest telecommunications groups have a combined market capitalization of EUR 240 billion, while the six largest technology groups weigh in at more than EUR 7 billion.
The big tech and video streaming companies counter that they also share in the cost of upgrading the networks and that their bundling agreements with the telcos help attract and retain customers, creating shared value.
Netflix said: "We are working with European internet providers to make the networks more efficient. For example, we have invested heavily in our own content delivery network called Open Connect".
Netflix added that the more than 700 so-called "caching" sites it has built across Europe - meaning content is stored locally and doesn't have to be transported across long distances - reduces traffic on broadband networks, reducing user experiences improved and saved costs.
Amazon declined to comment. Meta did not respond to a request for comment.
Matthew Howett, an analyst at Assembly Research, said the tech companies are right when they point out that they are already contributing to content delivery. "The question, therefore, is whether this is enough to meet the needs of network infrastructure providers.
Although previous attempts to change the rules in Europe have not been successful, Howett suggested that greater awareness by policymakers of the environmental benefits of network upgrades and for the importance of connectivity during the Covid-19 pandemic could pave the way for a different outcome.
