BARCELONA, March 1 — Netflix co-chief Greg Peters has dismissed a call by European network operators for a levy on major online services, reported German Press Agency (dpa).
This would reduce investment in content, make internet contracts less attractive and ultimately harm consumers, Peters said on Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The newly appointed co-chief executive of the video streaming giant also stressed that network operators' costs have remained the same in recent years, despite the sharp increase in data volumes.
European network operators have wanted to charge platforms with high data throughput for years. The recent launch of EU consultations on the issue gives the telecoms industry hope of achieving what it wants.
In Barcelona, it was said that the five largest online services account for about 55 per cent of data traffic. This costs European network operators about US$15 billion a year.
In return, Peters stressed that Netflix had made the transmission of its series and films more efficient through the further development of streaming technologies. In 2020, for example, only half the data throughput was needed for the same picture quality as in 2015.
Netflix also grants telecom companies free access to its own network, in which it has invested more than US$1 billion, he said.
Peters also pointed out that Netflix had invested more than US$60 billion in content production in the past five years. Entertainment companies could also argue that network operators should instead pay them money for access to content, he said. "But we're not asking for that."
— Bernama
