Google, Microsoft 'should pay for Ireland's broadband roll-out': Eircom exec

Last Friday evening, a senior Eircom executive (John McKeon, director of Eircom Wholesale) made an audacious pitch. Speaking at the annual Ibec telecoms ball, he told the crowd of telecoms bosses that it was time to look again at how Ireland's broadband roll-out was funded.

His proposal: that Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook and other large web content providers should co-pay for infrastructure costs.

The pitch is not a new one. For many years, the US telecoms and cable giants have been calling for some form of "contribution" from content-providers toward their costs. The most oft-used rationale is that Google and Yahoo are getting a "free ride" off their infrastructure.

But this new thinking is likely to be provocative to firms such as Google and Microsoft, multinationals we're supposed to be courting. It might also prove a little unpalatable to film, television and music producers (including RTE), who might have mixed views on their downloadable products being cited as the reason they get a bill for network fees.

The Minister for Communications, Eamon Ryan, got up to speak after McKeon. He acknowledged the point without commenting on it.

Comments

[Sylvia]

Net neutrality is going to be a big issue in telecoms this year. State-side, the battle is about to kick off: The FCC is pushing for stricter regulation so that it can ensure net neutrality, and a Senate Commerce Committee has said it will re-write telecoms law if necessary in order to guarantee net neutrality. Guess who doesn't like that? Meanwhile, Neelie Kroes has said she'll take action against EU telcos if they try to charge more for high-bandwidth content delivery.

[Michele Neylon]

Net neutrality has been a hot topic for a long time.
Unfortunately the Irish government and its officers like to go for the media soundbites and keep rehashing certain catchphrases. When it comes to actually doing anything about it they don't seem to want to actually engage.

[David Cochrane]

If eircom don't want to provide the infrastructure, then someone else will. We're reaching a stage now where there's some pretty decent competition in the market place.

Those providing high-bandwidth fees for content delivery (such as RTE for their Player) are paying their own broadband bills to get the content online. So they're already paying.

Also, I thought it was the customers who were paying for the broadband, when did Eircom become a charitable organisation?

[Karel Aija]

Dear people,

Greed is what has f**ked up Ireland.

E.G.: consumers pay for a tv-license, RTE gets money. Content providers (like Sky) pay a license, RTE gets money. RTE sells advertisements (even during newscast.. so unprofessional), RTE gets money. RTE is a company. If a company cant create enough revenue to swim, it should sink! Why do we need RTE2 anyway? TG4 I understand - it provides Gaelic content.

Same applies to Eircom. If 20 euro per private household customer of line rental is not enough to sustain them, then please sink already and let someone else, who can swim, take over.