BBC and ISPs Clash over iPlayer

randomtimes writes "A row about who should pay for extra network costs incurred by the iPlayer has broken out between internet service providers (ISPs) and the BBC. ISPs say the on-demand TV service is putting strain on their networks, which need to be upgraded to cope. '"The iPlayer has come along and made downloading a legal and mass market activity," said Michael Phillips, from broadband comparison service broadbandchoices.co.uk. He said he believed ISPs were partly to blame for the bandwidth problems they now face. "They have priced themselves as cheaply as possible on the assumption that people were just going to use e-mail and do a bit of web surfing," he said. ISPs needed to stop using the term 'unlimited' to describe their services and make it clear that if people wanted to watch hours of downloaded video content they would have to pay a higher tariff, he added.'"

New Google App Engine Proxy Saves British ISPs

[Saint Aardvark]

LONDON (AP) -- Google Apps today announced its first big hit: an AsciiArt video streaming proxy aimed at struggling British ISPs.

Coded by a Melvin Haymeggle, a young college student, in a little under 18 hours, the proxy uses the open-source video player MPlayer [mplayerhq.hu], and the video display library aalib [sourceforge.net], to convert streaming video on-the-fly into ASCII art [liquidweather.net].

"At first it was just a joke between me and a few friends," said Haymeggle. "Me and my roommates used it to mess with people leaching our wireless to watch porn. But then Google App Engine [google.com] was announced, and we figured it would be fun to write up some Python bindings for it."

The announcement comes at a perilous time for British ISPs, who have been struggling to come to terms with the increased demand for on-demand video as a result of BBC's iPlayer.

"We were shocked -- shocked! -- to realize that new Internet applications result in increased use of resources like bandwidth," said Charles Freskell, a spokesman for the British ISPs Association. "We were on the verge of sending a bill to the BBC when this proxy came along."

"Of course, we're still going to be monetizing content ruthlessly [slashdot.org]," he added quickly.

The application quickly and seamlessly converts the iPlayer's 1024x960, 24-bit colour, 30 frame-per-second video stream into an 80x25, 8-bit greyscale, 4 frame-per-second video stream. It is estimated that the proxy will save over 9 petabytes per furlong-fortnight.

Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman could not be reached for comment. "He's just mad that everyone has forgotten this was available in Emacs since 1997," said a source close to the open source figurehead.

$1,000 offer to anyone

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can provide proof to me that you have a regular residential connection and are getting the full advertised bandwidth sustained over a 30 minute period, and get this proof to me before 14:45 EST today, I will give you $1,000. For everyone else, you can now sue your ISP, because you now have a financial damage.

Re:Common Sense is asking too much...

[magarity]

I use between 15GB and 100GB of "bandwidth" per month. Storage? zilch.
 
Maybe *you* aren't using the storage yourself but it takes a lot of space on the government's servers to index and cross reference your 100GB of browsing habits.

Re:Amen

[vtscott]

Oh please, they already tell you all that you need to know. As soon as you sign up you'll get amazingly insane blindingly fast super speed boostingly high groin grabbingly good comcastesticular fiber optic digital marketing buzzword speeds!!! You'll be literally flying around the internet with service better than god himself could provide (literally). That's way better than any actual numbers an ISP could give you. Numbers are so easy to manipulate. Marketing speak though... That never lies.

Re:What's the problem?

[Blakey Rat]

What's the problem? 300 people connect to the BBC and stream Benny Hill. Those 300 streams take X amount of bandwidth, once for every subscriber, and 300 times for the BBC.

Each subscriber pays for his little tube, and the BBC pays for it's tube big enough to carry 300 Benny Hill streams.

So what's the problem?

That 300 people are watching Benny Hill?

Re:Why isn't it treated lake any other utility?

[Mantaman]

You could always use an fantastic product at your ISP called PHORM so you can have only targeted advertising. ill get my coat :)