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Telecoms Promise 5G Networks If EU Cripples Net Neutrality (theverge.com) 194

Posted by EditorDavid from the innovation-at-a-price dept.
An anonymous reader quotes The Verge: A group of 20 major telcos including Deutsche Telekom, Nokia, Vodafone, and BT promise to launch 5G networks in every country in the European Union by 2020 -- so long as governments decide to weaken net neutrality rules. The coalition's plans are outlined in its "5G Manifesto," a seven-page document that details how the companies will roll 5G out across the continent over the next few years. However, by warning against regulation that would ensure an open internet and encouraging nations to water rules down, the companies are effectively holding the new technology for ransom... "The EU must reconcile the need for open Internet with pragmatic rules that foster innovation," reads the manifesto. "The telecom industry warns that current net neutrality guidelines, as put forward by [the Body of European Regulators], create significant uncertainties around 5G return on investment..."
The EU is asking the public to share their feedback on the manifesto.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Telecoms Promise 5G Networks If EU Cripples Net Neutrality More

Telecoms Promise 5G Networks If EU Cripples Net Neutrality

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  • What's bad for the telcos (Score:5, Informative)

    by pr0t0 ( 216378 ) on Sunday July 10, 2016 @04:39PM (#52484651)

    If the telcos don't want it, it must be good for the consumer.

    • Re:What's bad for the telcos (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 10, 2016 @04:52PM (#52484709)

      If the telcos don't want it, it must be good for the consumer.

      That sentiment applies to all big business these days. Whenever a business wants regulations changed (usually with the excuse of "helping the consumer"; which is always bullshit), I always try to figure out it benefits them - and how it usually hurts the little guy. I am called cynical - but I'm always right.

      I am now under the opinion that it's best and safest to reject business' desires just because they want it. Like my opinion of the TPP.

      Big biz REALLY wants it and it's filled with so much legal jargon that I cannot understand. Therefore; it is prudent to be against it.

      • In the vast majority of cases, I certainly agree. However, there are some instances where -- at least in a very narrow sense -- "big business" has more-or-less similar interests as the consumer. As an example, Netflix [netflix.com] and Google [google.com] both have seemingly reasonable stances on internet openness (at least in the USA). Whether you want to look at this as big business doing The Right Thing or as big business looking to lower their costs to increase their bottom line is up to you.

        I almost* feel sorry for the telcos

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Uberbah ( 647458 )

          As an example, Netflix and Google both have seemingly reasonable stances on internet openness (at least in the USA).

          Other than Google acting like a subsidiary of the NSA, maybe. But Netflix is reasonable through the force of competition - if they were able to drive cable companies out of business while buying up HBO, AMC, etc, their service and prices would eventually begin to suck as well.

          • Their service has already begun to suck.

            They are charging more while providing less than a year ago, two years ago, etc.

        • I don't feel sorry for the telcos at all. They made this bed with their monopolistic practices and shameless fraud and theft of billions of taxpayer dollars.

          It's time we the taxpayers got what we paid for over the last 20 years of excise taxes.

      • Although I agree with most of what has been said, I also understand the position Telcos are in. For one, their revenue growth is shrinking and there's no stopping of the bleeding in sight. On the flip side they've had to spend a lot to keep the networks going strong.

        So my thoughts are, if we want to solve this net neutrality debate, we need to be willing to pay the bill. I've said this before and I say it again. USERS SHOULD PAY FOR WHAT THEY USE. Having said that, the cost per unit of download/upload MUST

        • Bullshit, the telcos are making massive profits while refusing to upgrade their infrastructure. When a telco has fully updated infrastructure and isn't growing then I'll be willing to listen a bit. Currently, telcos want to provide only tiny increments in capacity a trickle at a time and are upset their already massive profits aren't growing massively enough.

          Currently, the only bit of sympathy I have for telcos is that chip makers are treating 10g+ link circuitry like diamonds. They've been making the same
    • As to their claims of it not being commercially viable with current net neutrality I can't comment on as I don't have a clue. BUT this doesn't necessarily mean it must be good for consumers, telco's are businesses, they have to believe the business is commercially viable before they will offer a service. What they are claiming here is the net neutrality rules prevent it from being commercially viable. No commercial viability, no service, I would argue that is not good for consumers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      They are worried because the EU has teeth. It already forced them to drop ridiculous roaming charges between countries. They tried to lobby against those rules but lost, so now they are trying bribery. Well, it's probably more like bait and switch.

      This is the reality of the EU. It's far less vulnerable to lobbying and bribery than national governments, so we get a lot of really good consumer and employee protection law from it.

  • Oh this is cute. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (reggoh.gip)> on Sunday July 10, 2016 @04:44PM (#52484669) Journal
    Now, if the EU had any balls, it should pull the licences from those operators and give it to those who would not blackmail them. Or, better yet, promise anti-neutrality rules for AFTER the 5G network is up, then tell them to fuck-off.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Teun ( 17872 )
      Uhhh, no the EU has not issued licenses, all the EU does is assure a level playing field between countries.
      Licenses are handed out (sold for good money) by the individual member countries.
      Alone the fact these telcos are offering such good money is proof they believe it'll make them money by following the known net neutrality rules, they just want to burn the candle from both ends, the subscriber/consumer and also those with the content.

    • Now, if the EU had any balls, it should pull the licences from those operators and give it to those who would not blackmail them.

      Like who, for example?

      • Have government own and run the cellphone infrastructure as a public service, like roads. Let corporations provide the content and services that run on that network.

        • Have government own and run the cellphone infrastructure as a public service, like roads. Let corporations provide the content and services that run on that network.

          We tried that in Europe; it worked like shit.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      More fun to national the networks for token payments, fire all senior executives and directors and let them reapply for their jobs, with major pay cuts and hugely increased actually working hours. Is that not the normal strategy corporations have when they take over other corporations, why should not the people do that via the government they are meant to own and control.

    • Even better. Don't play games with people who don't blackmail them. That will just result in different forms of corruption. Instead fight dick moves with dick moves.

      Introduce changes to regulation. Call it the "Network neutrality revision bill". Add one statement in: "All network operators responsible for wireless infrastructure must have 50% 5G coverage of their customers by 2020." And then send that out for public comment.

      Bonus points if they put in a second statement to back that up with data where data

  • How about this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ziest ( 143204 ) on Sunday July 10, 2016 @04:44PM (#52484671) Homepage

    The EU government says to the telcos, implement 5G or lose your corporate charter. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

    • Re:How about this (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @12:35AM (#52486671) Homepage Journal

      Nah. Just tell them that if they don't set up 5G, they'll license the spectrum to someone who will. After all, this is just the prisoner's dilemma. I'm sure there are at least a few of those companies who would gladly stab the others in the back.

    • Good luck coming up with the legal case to support that - telco companies (at least in the UK) are not obliged to do anything the government demands them to do, and new legislation compelling them to do so wouldn't make it through Parliament.

  • How is that legal? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 10, 2016 @04:45PM (#52484679)

    Isn't this going to run into all kinds of anti-trust law? How can this group of companies get together and agree on something like this? Isn't this a hilarious level of collusion?

  • And the price tiers ... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Calydor ( 739835 ) on Sunday July 10, 2016 @04:49PM (#52484699)

    5G Price Tiers:

    50 Euro/month, 2 GB data cap, throttle to 64 kbps when you pass it for the rest of the month.
    100 Euro/month, 3 GB data cap, throttle to 64 kbps when you pass it for the rest of the month.

    And so on and so forth. They already do it with 4G, why not 5?

    Yes, I really did see the other day a data plan for 21.6 mbps downstream, 1 GB monthly data cap and 64 kbps throttle.

    • Yeah those 5G plans are so great, they allow you to use up your monthly cap in .2 seconds!

    • It's like that in Canada too. I'm holding onto my plan for dear life. I can never upgrade, I can never renew any contract otherwise I lose my primetime plan. 6gb data plan on my phone. All other features, 56 bux. If I renew, I must pay 120 for same plan.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Arkh89 ( 2870391 )

      More like 20 euros/month, 50GB in 4G (throttling over the cap)...
      I don't see how they would justify a pricey 5G.

      • They would easily make it more attractive just by slowing the 4G network down...

        • There's no need to run legal and PR risks deliberately degrading service. Just cut the maintenance and upgrade budget, and watch it slow down naturally.

          • True enough but with net neutrality broken there are no legal risks deliberately degrading service. That is what net neutrality is about.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Calydor ( 739835 )

        Pricey 5G justified by "This is new technology that is expensive to implement, give us more money".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pax681 ( 1002592 )

      5G Price Tiers:

      50 Euro/month, 2 GB data cap, throttle to 64 kbps when you pass it for the rest of the month. 100 Euro/month, 3 GB data cap, throttle to 64 kbps when you pass it for the rest of the month.

      And so on and so forth. They already do it with 4G, why not 5?

      Yes, I really did see the other day a data plan for 21.6 mbps downstream, 1 GB monthly data cap and 64 kbps throttle.

      then you get shit deals.. I get unlimited 4G data, texts and any network minutes for 40 GBP per month

      • "Unlimited as long as you don't try to actually use it that way" is not unlimited. If you're quoting a price in pounds maybe all your telecoms haven't had the simultaneous realization that they can be dicks about it like they did over here yet.

        For your car analogy, the speedometer goes up to 140 mph but if you actually throttle up to that fast the engine wears out within an hour. Then they market it on the claim you can drive 140.

        "What? You can totally drive 140."

  • If they don't remain competitive, a new technology will come along and they will be gone.
    That may still happen :-)
    But this is just like going to the government and asking for tax breaks to build something you have to build.

  • Will the telecoms really leave that much profit on the table and refuse to upgrade their networks?

    I don't think they are that stupid. Or, rather, I do think they are that greedy.

    I'm calling their bluff.

    • Will the telecoms really leave that much profit on the table and refuse to upgrade their networks?

      What profit? They are getting about $70/month right now for 4G. Where exactly are they going to make any more profit if they upgrade to 5G under net neutrality rules?

      • Not my problem. Theirs. Legislation isn't supposed to prop up a business model. Find one that works with the legislation or GTFO and let someone else try his hand at it.

        • Legislation isn't supposed to prop up a business model.

          That's exactly what's going to happen: either European telecoms are going to get concessions on net neutrality, or they are going to get other concessions from European governments.

          Find one that works with the legislation or GTFO and let someone else try his hand at it.

          If Europe were foolish enough to take away the licenses over this, no sane investor would put their money into any other telecoms company.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sneftel ( 15416 )

        Heh, no they aren't. 4G data plans in the EU don't even come *close* to $70/month. Vodafone Germany's most expensive data-only plan, for instance, is only 30 euro.

        More importantly, though, nobody's making distinctions between 3G and 4G anymore. Early on, 4G was only offered by some of the providers, and at a hefty premium. As more providers followed suit to maintain feature parity, that premium shrank and disappeared. So the market rewarded the early movers, incentivised the industry as a whole to roll out

        • Heh, no they aren't. 4G data plans in the EU don't even come *close* to $70/month. Vodafone Germany's most expensive data-only plan, for instance, is only 30 euro.

          Who said "data only"? Average UK cell phone bills are around $70/month. Go look it up.

          So the market rewarded the early movers, incentivised the industry as a whole to roll out 4G, and kept prices fair.

          The industry may well be incentivized through competition and a desire for customer retention to implement 5G. But a 5G rollout is a massive capital

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Sneftel ( 15416 )

            As an investor, you're going to support a 5G rollout because if your competitors do and you don't, your portfolio will be well and truly screwed in a few years. Maybe you think the early-mover bonus is going to cover the costs and maybe you don't, but either way you clearly can't afford to hang back. The only real question is what effect it'll have on the rollout *schedule*.

            • As an investor, you're going to support a 5G rollout because if your competitors do and you don't, your portfolio will be well and truly screwed in a few years.

              Are you daft or something? These are publicly traded companies. As an investor, I'm not going to hang on to shares that are even going to have a whiff of a possibility of "truly screwing up my portfolio", I'm simply going to sell my shares and invest in something else.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Sneftel ( 15416 )

                Zero-risk is kind of a weird strategy for someone holding stock, but okay, whatever. So the stock price finds a lower equilibrium, because people feel that 5G's gonna be an overall negative for the carriers. So what? The carriers still have to deal with it. Whichever one finds the right balance between ramp-up costs and early-mover benefits will do the best, meaning they all have a strong incentive to be that one.

                I cannot believe I'm explaining the invisible hand of the market to someone who's arguing *agai

      • well it's not like electrons are in short supply. Ongoing revenue for a commodity that doesn't actually get used up means it's just a giant profit center. Yes, there is network maintenance and upgrading, but apparently they aren't doing the upgrading any more without having the EU capitulate.

  • No they can't (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 10, 2016 @04:59PM (#52484745)

    They can provide 5G but only if they can throttle the speed?

    I guess they can't provide 5G then.

  • Comapnies trying to trick the EU (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SmaryJerry ( 2759091 ) on Sunday July 10, 2016 @05:05PM (#52484769)
    They will and have to launch 5G anyways. This is a scam to try to get something profitable from the EU for work they already have planned.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dywolf ( 2673597 )

      we already seen how this plot line plays out in the US a few decades ago.

      In a landmark compromise, in return for massive tax breaks and credits, to the tune of 300+billion dollars (guessing maybe 400-500+ in todays dollars), they were supposed to roll out high speed internet infrastructure nationwide using the money they didn't pay in taxes.

      Instead they just pocketed the cash, and padded their profits, and have yet to be held accountable for the swindle.

  • Uh huh... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by EmeraldBot ( 3513925 ) on Sunday July 10, 2016 @05:07PM (#52484773)

    In the US, our internet service providers promised that with those sweet, sweet government enabling funds, we'd all be connected with "high speed" internet at a "reasonable" price. Here we are, a market with three competitors, a significant portion of the country running under a monopoly, extremely high prices for a limited amount of data (it's not rare to pay $150+ for what goes for €30 here in Germany), and are on the verge to legally owning something the government paid to build and would be promised is theirs. Even if the EU consents, why should they actually build it out? They are promising a verbal contract here, one that technically isn't valid, and if they actually did write a contract it would have the stipulation such that 95% of the country has to use more than 128 Terabytes per month or so. As soon as net neutrality is off the table, you will have to pay €150 for anything faster than 256 kpbs, I guarantee you.

    And that's not even considering what the internet was actually for. It may just be a giant commercial venue today, but it's mind blowing to think that once upon a time, it actually was for academic purposes and freedom of speech and all that. While I don't think it should be exclusively a government service, it should at the very least be regulated as a utility should be, or if not that than the government should provide its own service to compete with the private ones. It would be insane to think of a water company limiting your water supply to a trickle, or your electric company deciding that if you don't double your monthly payment they will halve your power supply, and I don't understand why the internet shouldn't be opened the same way, especially given that we've already suffered through every website being a front to sell something, there's enough pure profit going on as it is.

    Here's hoping the EU has the balls to do what the US government couldn't (and still can't).

  • Survey (Score:5, Informative)

    by tsa ( 15680 ) on Sunday July 10, 2016 @05:10PM (#52484779) Homepage

    I tried to fill in the survey that is linked to above. First you have to state if you act for a company or as an individual. I filled in Individual. Then I had to answer many mandatory questions about the company I represented and how important 5G was for my company. After that came questions like:

    5G European deployment should also target as priority from the start the services that enable creation of ecosystems with vertical industries, namely mMTC and URLL classes of use cases

    Agree
    Neutral
    Disagree

    Yeah, I can easily aswer questions like this as an individual who just uses his phone for YouTube and Whatsapp. Thanks EU for the nice survey.

    • This survey is obviously not meant for consumers, but for organisations that could actually benefit from 5G.
      3.5G (at 21 mbit/s) has been sufficient for consumer purposes for a long time now and this line from the summary is just bullshit:
      "The EU is asking the public to share their feedback on the manifesto."

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by tsa ( 15680 )

        But then the question wether you respond as an individual or a representative of a company should have been left out.

        • Well, not really. You could be an employee of such a company but not necessarily officially representing the company.

          I'll readily admit that in general it is a crappy survey, btw.

  • At some point in the near future 5G will be made obsolete by the next best thing but net neutrality will be screwed forever.

  • Translations inside (Score:3)

    by TigerPlish ( 174064 ) on Sunday July 10, 2016 @05:27PM (#52484843)

    Net Neutrality: Level playing ground. We can't be having none of that, nope... because it stifles:

    Innovation: New and interesting ways in which to squeeze every farthing out of every consumer / customer / person.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by wbr1 ( 2538558 )
      To a corporate bean counter, innovation means new and unique ways of extracting rent from old property and new ways of limiting expenditure.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • You mean... governments acting like ... you know, GOVERNMENTS? Instead of corporate whores?

      C'mon, we're talking about the EU here. This ain't Russia, ya know?

  • "Recommendation for Naturalization of Telco Assets"
  • The way I read it, they are saying they could have gone to 5g already, but are holding out to dig even deeper in the consumer's pocket.

  • I call bluff. They WILL have to offer 5g networks or people will simply ignore them and keep their data transportation need on land lines. Which will cut into THEIR bottom line, not anyone else's.

    So go ahead and hold that 5g for ransom. It's not like anyone but you gets hurt by it.

  • [Big telecom companies] promise to launch 5G networks in every country in the European Union by 2020 -- so long as governments decide to weaken net neutrality rules.

    Translation: if governments do not weaken net neutrality rules, other smaller telecom companies will be able to set up 5G networks, and that will hurt big telecom profits.

  • ...but it sure seems like blackmail to me.

    (Of course, IANAL blah, blah, blah...)

  • Nationalize all the commercial telecoms. Then convert them to local and regional cooperatives. Communications is a utility now. While we're at it, we can do the same with the commercial power companies. I am lucky enough to live in an area served by an electric co-op. I live next door to people who have a large fee attached to their electric bill just so that the local commercial power company can pretend to build a site for a nuclear plant that will never be constructed.

    No more of this phony blackmail

  • The worst expected consequence of keeping neutrality,is a little slower roll-out, but that mean cheaper and better tested when it does roll out.
  • 4Gs (GGGG) should be enough.

  • is for ONE of the Telcos to break ranks with the rest and start offering a 5g network for public use. ( Investor pressure will force this eventually )

    The others will panic over the loss of customers / revenue and will follow suit rather quickly. They'll have to.

    Their investors will not tolerate sitting on the sidelines.

  • Stuck at current speeds vs. only being able to use the services a carrier decides I can use?

    I think you know where you can put your 5G.

  • Big Oil also told Norway that they wouldn't drill in the North Sea if Norway set their oil royalties where they are today.

    If launching 5G networks works financially for the companies then they will do it.. With or without Net Neutrality laws.

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