Deutsche Telekom AG CEO incompetent to run a telecom business

Macworld reports that the CEO of Deutsche Telekom AG, Kai-Uwe Ricke, supports artificial internet price-tiering:

“Customers should not be the only ones to pay for this new world,” CEO Kai-Uwe Ricke said in an interview published Thursday in the German weekly business magazine WirtschaftsWoche. “Web companies that use this infrastructure for their business should also make a contribution.”

He warned that “if customers aren’t willing to pay and Google & Co. aren’t willing to pay, there won’t be any high-speed data highways.”

Let’s be clear about the way internet connectivity works: there is no free lunch. As a consumer, I pay for my connection to the internet. As a business, Google pays lots of money for their connection to the internet. The internet is structured such that the money that I and Google pay trickles down to all of the networks that are interconnected, so that when Google sends out a web page, it can travel over a few different networks and wind up in my browser.

For Mr. Ricke, or any telecom executive (including those at AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth) to claim that no one is paying for the high-speed networks they are building is an out-and-out lie. You and me and Google and Microsoft all pay a share. These telecom executives are passing the buck for their responsibility to run their businesses profitably.

The situation is simple: If Mr. Ricke’s company is in fact making plenty of profit, then he’s just executing a land grab, stealing public resources and hoarding them for himself to make even more money. If Mr. Ricke’s company isn’t making a profit, then the fault lays soundly on him as the CEO. Regardless, if its not profitable for DT or Verizon or AT&T or BellSouth to build high-speed networks, then that’s their problem, not ours. And if they can’t do business profitably, then some other competitor should come along and soundly beat them in the marketplace.

Don’t pawn off your lack of business acumen, Mr. Ricke. Take responsibility for your company.