ROME, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Italy is moving to introduce

measures aimed at ensuring that Big Tech firms share the cost of

developing telecoms infrastructure in the country, Industry

Minister Adolfo Urso said on Monday.

Telecoms companies argue that Alphabet's Google,

Meta's Facebook, Amazon ( AMZN ), Apple and

Microsoft ( MSFT ) should bear some of the high-speed network

rollout costs because they make up a huge part of internet

traffic.

Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica

and Telecom Italia call it fair-share funding

while Big Tech says it amounts to an internet tax.

"We are all working on this issue. It's important that we go

in this direction," Urso told reporters on the sidelines of an

event in Milan.

"It makes good sense for big tech to contribute to the

workload that is then entrusted to the large telecommunications

networks," he added.

Several ruling politicians have presented proposals in

parliament stating that Big Tech should negotiate technical and

economic conditions for the remuneration of telecommunications

operators.

Our "proposal aims to introduce a contribution from online

platforms, very large online search engines and gatekeeper

servicers to support investments in electronic communications

networks," an amendment by Andrea Dara, from the League party,

said.

The move is broadly in line with previous initiatives laid

out at the European Union level before last June's elections,

which resulted in a second mandate for European Commission

President Ursula von der Leyen.