CDN Alliance voices concerns to the European Commission

Last Friday was the deadline for the European Commission’s public exploratory consultation from the European Commission “The future of the electronic communications sector and its infrastructure”. The CDN Alliance has answered this questionnaire to voice our concerns.

In short our goal of the questionnaire was to voice our concerns on the questionnaire itself, on how outcomes could be used and the potential next steps associated with it that potentially can impact the CDN Ecosystem. The CDN Alliance had difficulties with the setup of the questionnaire and way the questions and answering were formulated and the data being requested and therefore decided not to answer any of the questions. Instead we have focused on the written contribution to bring across our concerns to the European Commission about the possible impacts on the CDN Ecosystem and assumptions and ideas as stipulated in the questionnaire itself.

The full submission of the written contribution (3 pages) can be downloaded here. In short our concerns are:

1. No Collaboration

The exploratory consultation has the potential to disrupt the collaboration within the CDN Ecosystem, causing divisions within the CDN Ecosystem.

2. Single Sided Solutions

The suggestions for solutions are single-sided, not looking at alternatives and possible impacts and without first having a clear problem definition that has independently researched and is based on hard facts.

3. Impact on the CDN Ecosystem

Any dictated change can impact all aspects of content delivery, including availability, scalability, performance, costs, efficiency, and security of the full CDN Ecosystem.

4. Increased Costs

Any dictated change can increase costs for multiple actors within the CDN Ecosystem, making content delivery more expensive, thereby widening the digital divide within the EU.

5. EU vs. The World

Implementing changes within the EU could isolate the EU within the Global CDN Ecosystem.

If there are any questions on our submission or more information is needed, always feel free to reach out to the CDN Alliance at [email protected].