EU and national associations representing companies that bring ultrafast digital connectivity in Europe – AOMR (RO), APMS (CZ), AssoTelecomunicazioni (IT), ATI (BG), DigitalES (SP), ETNO (EU), Fédération Française des Télécoms (FR), and the GSMA Europe (EU), issued a joint statement calling for greater participation of Big Tech and OTTs in infrastructure investments and extending some telecoms regulatory requirements to OTT services.

The Associations claim that reaching the EU Digital Decade Targets (which include the roll-out of gigabit connectivity for everyone and 5G everywhere by 2030) and EU Green Deal objectives (full digitalization in order to achieve zero emissions) requires participation of the entire digital ecosystem. This would imply imposing a „fair and proportional contribution“ of all players in the development of digital network infrastructures.

In this sense, the Associations request European policymakers to „promote swift policy intervention and to help ensure that big tech companies contribute their fair share to growing the EU Internet ecosystem, especially in the context of continuous data traffic increases.”

The Big Tech and OTTs, generating a lot of traffic which contributes to their business, are invited to bear some of the burden for the infrastructure.