“As mobile and Web companies add videos, music and games, operators including France Telecom SA, Telecom Italia SpA and Vodafone Group Plc want a new deal that would require content providers like Apple and Google to pay fees linked to usage,” Campbell and Browning report. “‘Service providers are flooding networks with no incentive’ to cut costs, France Telecom Chief Executive Officer Stephane Richard said last month. ‘It’s necessary to put in place a system of payments by service providers as a function of their use.'”
Campbell and Browning report, “To be sure, operators are benefitting from the surging popularity of mobile data use. Domestic data revenue at France Telecom, the biggest seller of Apple’s iPhones after AT&T Inc., surged 24 percent in the third quarter, rising to almost 32 percent of network revenue… Faced with slowing overall revenue growth even as data usage soars, the operators are trying to pass on some of the costs to the service providers.”
“Last month, the tensions threatened to spill into public after a plan by Apple to introduce a so-called soft SIM in its next iPhone prompted threats from European operators to cut subsidies for the device, the Daily Telegraph reported,” Campbell and Browning report. “A soft SIM would make it easier for consumers to switch network providers by eliminating the need for a new, physical SIM card issued by an operator to do so. While Apple backed off for now, the technology will eventually be introduced, Sanford Bernstein analyst Robin Bienenstock said in a note to clients, calling the iPhone-maker a ‘frenemy’ for operators.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple should stipulate that their contribution only goes to improving the network performance for Apple product users. After all, this isn’t a charity operation for iPhone patent infringing wannabes, right?
Otherwise, let the market sort itself out; those who want to stream Internet radio all day while uploading photos to facebook iPhones can pay for the privilege and the rest of us can continue paying too much already for the data we consume. We have no problem with tiered pricing based on data consumption.
Europeans. Always looking for a handout.
When did you Euros become such codependent pansies?
I thought that was the whole point of the new tiered data plans!
Networks are trying to double dip.
Looks like we’ll be going “over there” again.
Um, sorry but I don’t want to pay higher prices on Apple’s products because Apple has to pay ISPs for users that sit around all day playing Farmville on Facebook on their smartphone
Simple- Change the user for what they use.
There ya go. Problem solved.
Carriers should just be grateful for the interest and revenue generated by the iPhone. Recessions would otherwise hurt telecoms. With that, Apple has given enough to these dumb pipes.
aggg!! Edit function please MDN.
Simple- Charge the user for what they use.
And the airline industry should also pitch in for oil drilling, I suppose…?
Apple pay for upgrading their network…..snicker…snicker…snort…HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHhaaaa…whew.
Can I have Ford pay for a more efficient engine, a larger fuel tank and a pair of fuzzy dice?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhAHAHAHAHAHAHHAhA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Smartphone use world wide has grown tremendously, as has 3G use for laptops and so forth. Apple has certainly helped to drive this growth, but they alone are not responsible for helping the networks to catch up. Further, all the European networks were built with heavy government subsidies to begin with – and today the governments are not going to contribute.
Basically, this is like what AT&T did with the $30 unlimited plan when it introduced the two current data plans. The difference is that the Europeans did not analyze or forecast this growth and the need to raise their rates as well as AT&T did.
But I thought only the US had infrastructure issues!!??
Macs take-up power – Apple should also pay to improve the electrical grid.
@The Obama Mistake
“Europeans. Always looking for a handout.
When did you Euros become such codependent pansies?”
Don’t be such a small-minded moron. Your free-market loving American companies are trying to do the same thing–charge companies extra if their content takes more bandwidth than regular sites (e.g. Youtube, NetFlix, etc), or for preferential treatment.
And yet you’ll whine and cry against net neutrality because it’s government interference (granted politicians on both sides will fsck up any and all legislation, no matter how good it starts off as).
Another example of rob Peter to pay Paul. Apple et al have caused these carriers revenue to dramatically increase of the past several years (Campbell and Browning report, “To be sure, operators are benefitting from the surging popularity of mobile data use. Domestic data revenue at France Telecom, the biggest seller of Apple’s iPhones after AT&T Inc., surged 24 percent in the third quarter, rising to almost 32 percent of network revenue.). It’s like GM wanting to charge purchasers of their autos to pay for a new production facility because of high demand.
Typical socialists expecting companies to pay for everything! If u don’t like the technology, don’t use it!
More asswipe cry baby irrespon sible eurotrash. They sound like the infantile US asswipe libs and their lapdog Hessien The Kenyan Community Organzier.
A couple of points. 1. No-one forced the operators to take on Apple products. If they want the business they should invest in their networks so that they grow with the business. 2. The operators charge much more than the average user uses and they don’t give anything back. The user signs up to what they think is the right tariff but hands up all those who use all their free minutes and text messages each month.
@X
But that “community organizer” IS IN FACT, the president of the United States of America. Like it or not.
@iMaki
Your comment makes no sense at all. It is A COMPANY that is asking companies to pay up. Idiot!
Why should someone pay you for shit you are profiting on? Ever?
Apple increased the providers’ profits in the first place as iPhone users use more data (ie. pay more $$$ for data plans) than others.
from a bunch of idiot socialists? If you don’t want to be a wireless company, then don’t do it. But if you do, then pay for your own damn expenses to run your business.
Pathetic.
I think it’s funny that the article writer or the Telcos refer to Apple, Google, and others as “service providers”.
Anyway, if they don’t want to pay for the upgrade, I’m sure some of their competitors will take over the unfulfilled revenue those lost customers will provide.
I hope I don’t have to start paying for all the antivirus update traffic required to keep Windows users pacified.
My insecure OS and its infected botnets use a lot of bandwidth too.
Oh dear, the shareholders are not going to like this one little bit. Time to kick the buffoon Balmer…
Sounds like the cost of doing business to me. Don’t like it? Get out of the business.
It also sounds like a good problem to have… Would they rather that there was too little traffic?
When the street gets too crowded, you build a bigger road. Do you charge the auto manufacturers? No, you charge the public driving on those roads.
@ian
SPOT on
Has any considered the fact that Apple’s iOS devices can operate without the internet but Google’s OS game plan is cloud based. Which OS will clog the Internet?