Telecoms operators confront EC over right to charge content providers

A consortium of major European telecoms operators is to head to the European Commission on Wednesday to demand that its members be allowed to charge content firms for delivering services over their networks in order to recoup revenues.

The companies involved - Alcatel-Lucent, Deutsche Telekom and Vivendi - will publish a report outlining their arguments, claiming that they need to develop new business models to fund the delivery of services, particularly video.

The operators' chief executives will meet Neelie Kroes, vice president for the Digital Agenda, and will be hoping that her desire to provide superfast broadband to all by 2020 will give them a chip at the table.

The EC fears that its goal could be scuppered by a lack of investment from telecoms firms, and that allowing them to develop new models to charge for content delivery could provide the fillip they need.

Frederic Huet, managing director of telecoms consultancy group Greenwich Consulting, explained that the report highlights the "growing discontent" among operators over the costs they have to bear for broadband targets, especially as network traffic grows.

"It will no doubt be difficult for operators to meet the $421bn cost of rolling out high-speed broadband networks, but charging online content providers for delivering material may not be the best way to approach the situation," he said.

"Services such as streamed video are incredibly bandwidth-hungry and can negatively impact service and speed, meaning that browsing, email and messaging, which are much lighter and also generate revenues, are slower to access."