Congestion on the line

摘要

The raid by the European Commission's antitrust gumshoes this month on Orange (formerly France Telecom), Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica of Spain seemed to come out of the blue. The companies professed a surprise verging on stupefaction. Even some Brussels insiders were caught on the hop. Naming no names, the commission said the inquiry involved internet connectivity. The question is whether entrenched telecoms firms are abusing their strength in the market for internet traffic to deny video-streaming websites and other content providers full access to their networks to reach consumers. Besides the content providers themselves, the other potential plaintiffs are the "wholesalers" that the content providers use to ship their data across borders (and usually the Atlantic). These rely on incumbent internet-service providers (isps) such as Orange to take the data the last bit of the way to subscribers' screens and mobiles.