Mobile traffic growth continues to vex wireless carriers in a phenomenon that dates back to the dawn of the iPhone, and Europe’s largest wireless operators claim it’s reached a breaking point. Again.

The flood of entertainment and other media traversing mobile networks helps justify the massive investments carriers make to increase the capacity and speeds of their networks. However, the conundrum in all of this for carriers is that very little of the revenue generated by that media enters their orbit. Tech companies claim almost all of it.

Operators build the highways for bits and customers use the vast majority of that infrastructure to watch video, communicate, and share their personalities with communities of people they’ll probably never meet in the real world. 

This lopsided distribution of wealth generated by services that ride on mobile networks is a tired complaint, not because it’s without merit, but because there’s not much a carrier can do about it. 

The CEOs at Vodafone, Telefónica, Deutsche Telekom, and Orange hope to change that. 

“The current situation is simply not sustainable. The investment burden must be shared in a more proportionate way,” the executives wrote in a joint statement. “Today, video streaming, gaming, and social media originated by a few digital content platforms accounts for over 70% of all traffic running over the networks.”

These unnamed but well-known platforms “are profiting from hyper scaling business models at little cost while network operators shoulder the required investments in connectivity. At the same time, our retail markets are in perpetual decline in terms of profitability,” the CEOs said.

Despite their power as the leading providers of mobile service throughout the continent, the executives claim they are no match for the “strong market positions, asymmetric bargaining power, and the lack of a level regulatory playing field” enjoyed by tech giants. 

“Consequently, we cannot make a viable return on our very significant investments, putting further infrastructure development at risk,” the CEOs added. “If we don’t fix this unbalanced situation Europe will fall behind other world regions, ultimately degrading the quality of experience for all consumers.”

The group pointed to a national law under consideration in South Korea that aims to “create regulatory conditions for a fairer contribution to network costs,” and a proposed universal service funded by digital platforms in the U.S. 

The executives closed by calling upon European Union policymakers to introduce rules that effectively shift some of their assumed infrastructure costs to companies that financially benefit from the services they provide.

It’s a big ask, and not one the tech giants will agree to without a fight.