news/AAPL/2023.02.01/EU may miss gigabit target, more investments needed, telecoms group says.txt

BRUSSELS, Feb 1 (Reuters) - The European Union risks
missing its target to connect all European households to a
gigabit network by 2030, underscoring the need for more
investments, according to a study commissioned by telecoms
lobbying group ETNO.The study by Analysys Mason comes as the bloc considers the
possibility of getting Alphabet Inc's Google, Meta
, Amazon.com Inc, Netflix , Apple
and Microsoft to bear some of the network
costs.Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica
, Telecom Italia and their peers say this
should be seen as a fair share contribution from the six content
providers which account for more than half of data internet
traffic.Big Tech sees it as an internet traffic tax at odds with EU
net neutrality rules treating all users equally, saying that
they also invest in their own content delivery networks.Total telecom investment in Europe peaked at 56.3 billion
euros in 2021, the highest since 2016, but still lagged behind
other regions, the report said."Europe continues to trail its peers worldwide in terms of
telecoms investment. Investment per capita adjusted to GDP was
104 euros in Europe in 2021 compared with 260 euros in Japan,
150 euros in the United States and 110 euros in China," the
study said."More investment capacity is needed to accelerate
innovation, but the established current trends place additional
pressure on many operators to sell or separate service and
innovation-related assets," it said.The study also noted the large gap between the returns on
investment for telecoms operators and those for Big Tech."There is an acute discrepancy between the returns on
investment in European telecoms infrastructure and the returns
on investment of the largest services that run over this
infrastructure," it said."When it comes to internet access, it is telecoms operators
that shoulder the investment burden, while in terms of new value
creation it is tech companies that benefit the most."
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, Editing by Louise Heavens)