“Macworld reports”:1 that the CEO of Deutsche Telekom AG, Kai-Uwe Ricke, supports artificial internet price-tiering:
bq. “Customers should not be the only ones to pay for this new world,” CEO Kai-Uwe Ricke said in an interview published Thursday in the German weekly business magazine WirtschaftsWoche. “Web companies that use this infrastructure for their business should also make a contribution.”
bq. He warned that “if customers aren’t willing to pay and Google & Co. aren’t willing to pay, there won’t be any high-speed data highways.”
Let’s be clear about the way internet connectivity works: there is no free lunch. As a consumer, I pay for my connection to the internet. As a business, Google pays lots of money for their connection to the internet. The internet is structured such that the money that I and Google pay trickles down to all of the networks that are interconnected, so that when Google sends out a web page, it can travel over a few different networks and wind up in my browser.
For Mr. Ricke, or any telecom executive (including those at AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth) to claim that no one is paying for the high-speed networks they are building is an out-and-out lie. You and me and Google and Microsoft all pay a share. These telecom executives are passing the buck for their responsibility to run their businesses profitably.
The situation is simple: If Mr. Ricke’s company is in fact making plenty of profit, then he’s just executing a land grab, stealing public resources and hoarding them for himself to make even more money. If Mr. Ricke’s company isn’t making a profit, then the fault lays soundly on him as the CEO. Regardless, if its not profitable for DT or Verizon or AT&T or BellSouth to build high-speed networks, then that’s their problem, not ours. And if they can’t do business profitably, then some other competitor should come along and soundly beat them in the marketplace.
Don’t pawn off your lack of business acumen, Mr. Ricke. Take responsibility for your company.
[1]http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/02/24/freelunch/index.php
Filed under: Network Neutrality, News, Policy
Well, you can’t know about it as this specific topic is about a Germany related fight Deutsche Telekom AG is doing … the interview in the german magazine WirtschaftsWoche is out context.
Deutsche Telekom AG wants to build a very high speed network (supporting 50 MBit for the end user) for about 3 billion Euro (3,6 billion US dollars). Now they blackmail the german government, that they’ll only build this network if it won’t be regulated by the german telecomunication regulation department. This would result in a network where only Deutsche Telekom AG would have access to (no competitor would be allowed to use it). This blackmailing caused a stir at the european parlament. They now want to enforce that Deutsche Telekom AG won’t be allowed to build a network which wouldn’t be regulated.
So Mr. Ricke and his lobby mourn about everything regarding telecomunication and give a lot of absurd interviews …
Cheers from Germany, Max!
Max,
Thanks for the context. Its great to hear about this from someone who knows the local marketplace and language.
Dana
[...] Akik nem örülnek ennek, a Google, Az e-bay és az Amazon, aki igen, az a Deutsche Telekom , A T-Online anyavállalata (lásd még itt). Holnaptól ha a T-Online (nem a Simó-féle magyar, hanem az egész német multi) azt mondja, hogy az ADSL 6k/hó, plusz minden egyes google-re továbbított bit egy ezres, nemhogy nem lehet emberiségellenes tettekért a hágai nemzetközi bíróság elé citálni őket, és megfelelően súlyos büntetést kiszabni a kitervelőire, de egyáltalán nem lehet se gazdasági, se más módon fellépni ellenük. [...]