France's 10-cent-per-GB tax that would double your digital bill

France proposes a 10-cent-per-GB tax: what the real impact would look like

Can you imagine paying €75 extra a month to use the internet the way you do now? That is exactly what France's Socialist Party (PS) is proposing: a tax of €0.10 for every gigabyte downloaded. The idea, reported by Les Numériques, has set off alarm bells both in France and in Spain, where a knock-on effect is antiestéticared.

How much would the gigabyte tax really cost?

The numbers are damning. According to circulating figures, an average household consumes around 750 GB a month across fibre and mobile. At 10 cents per GB, the monthly surcharge would come to €75. But consumption is growing 20% a year, so by 2030 that figure would soar to €140 a month. A user who logged 400 GB in 30 days just browsing and watching YouTube would pay €40 extra a month, more than their internet plan itself costs.

The concrete examples are frightening: a 4K movie on Netflix would cost an extra €1.40; downloading a large video game, like those expected for the future PS6, would add €10 to the price. Tech companies would be hit hardest: an SME with remote workers could face €150-200 per employee per month, and cloud or AI companies, which move petabytes of data, would add hundreds of thousands of euros a month to their bills.

Technical and political viability of the levy

Technically, the tax is a headache. To apply it, operators would have to inspect encrypted traffic (something that clashes with privacy) or use Deep Packet Inspection techniques that would melt routers. Some analysts point out that the only way to discriminate traffic would be with quantum computers at network nodes. Or, quite simply, not to discriminate at all and charge all users equally, which would be even more unfair.

Politically, France's PS is not at its best: polls place it out of the electoral race. But the shadow of the idea is already hovering over Brussels, according to some commentators. In Spain, distrust is immediate: "What is applied in France arrives here within a year or two," several analyses conclude.

A return to the digital past

Ironically, the debate smells of 1990s nostalgia, when you paid for connection time with a 56k modem. Twenty-six years after the arrival of ADSL and the flat rate, some want to take us back to the metered era. The difference is that back then there was no streaming, no automatic updates, no remote work. Now, data consumption is unavoidable. And paying twice —the plan fee to the operator plus the tax— seems like a bad joke.