Big Tech firms should pay ISPs to upgrade networks, telcos in Europe claim:
The CEOs of 13 large European telecom companies today called on tech giants—presumably including Netflix and other big US companies—to pay for a portion of the Internet service providers' network upgrade costs. In a "joint CEO statement," the European telcos described their proposal as a "renewed effort to rebalance the relationship between global technology giants and the European digital ecosystem."
The letter makes an argument similar to one that AT&T and other US-based ISPs have made at times over the past 15 years, that tech companies delivering content over the Internet get a "free" ride and should subsidize the cost of building last-mile networks that connect homes to broadband access. These arguments generally don't mention the fact that tech giants already pay for their own Internet bandwidth costs and that Netflix and others have built their own content-delivery networks to help deliver the traffic that home-Internet customers choose to receive.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday December 02 2021, @12:18AM (2 children)
Works fine, if you don't live in a state like Florida which has banned this sort of thing.
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Thursday December 02 2021, @04:24PM (1 child)
I would have to read Florida's statute to be sure, but the general gist of the laws I read prohibit utility companies from providing Internet service. My own state has just this type of ban as well. However, the utility company is not providing Internet service. It is providing the physical lines over which private companies provide the actual Internet service.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday December 09 2021, @12:54AM
Florida's main reasoning behind the law was to prevent municipalities from providing low cost or even free internet for their areas.