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.'"

Re:Amen

[xtracto]

Bah, FWIW ISPs in the UK are complete rubbish. Take for example Virgin, which bought Telewest, NTL and surely will buy all the other cable providers. When I was in NTL, the service was so-so, but now that Virgin took over, the idiots cap your speed after you download more than a very small amount (350MB IRC) in one hour.

I am suscribed to the cheapest package (which costs £18 per month, none less) and can't imagine the anger of guys paying for the more expensive offers and then finding they can only download 350 MB per hour before being limited to 50Kbps download...

But the real problem is that of the power of corporations against the simple guy. A similar type of abuse happens with airlines like Ryanair or Easyjet. Just try to get a refund for your ticket, and according to their policies they will only refund the tax... but guess what? if you actually contact them for the tax (it does not matter if it is about £150 ) they will say that the "administration fees" are higher than the tax they would return to you and hence they won't give you anything.

Oh well, the wonders of capitalism.

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

[BForrester]

It's too bad there aren't any good widgets out there. This is the best program I could find for measuring total daily, weekly and monthly bandwidth usage. (My ISP charges per GB after a certain limit). It runs in the tray, doesn't have a high resource footprint, and it works.

http://www.shaplus.com/bandwidth-meter/index.htm/ [shaplus.com]

Re:Marketing isn't the problem

[Timothy Brownawell]

I think you are missing that the iPlayer can work in a P2P mode, so the ISPs claim that the BBC does not pay its fair share (because it merely seeds the downloads).

In this case, whoever's doing the uploading pays instead of the BBC. So the ISPs still get paid (unless they do something stupid, like sell unlimited flat-rate access).

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

[Timothy Brownawell]

But then who foots the bill for various things like all the ads that get displayed?

The people who waste bandwidth on them by not installing something like adblock.

Re:Amen

[TheRaven64]

I've complained to the Advertising Standards Agency about some of the claims made by ISPs in the past. Their response was that claims made on a company's web site do not constitute regulated advertising, and unless I can provide them with evidence of the same claims being made elsewhere, they can't proceed. Since most ISP's adverts in other media are so vague that it's difficult to even tell that they are an ISP, I haven't spotted any. If you see any, there's a form on the ASA web site you can fill in, and they will be fined accordingly.

Re:Caching not a solution

[PhilHibbs]

I read about this a few weeks ago and the ISP guy said "We have excellent peering links with the BBC, so that end isn't the problem" or words to that effect. It's a "last mile" problem.

Re:Marketing isn't the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

"And that is that the BBC effectively threatened to put out of buisness any ISP that dares to try to throttle its iPlayer service by 'naming and shaming' any that do, and suggesting that all other content providers do the same."

Not accurate at all. The BBC simply suggested that content providers should publicly name ISPs who block or impede content so consumers could vote with their wallets, and that was after an extensive post about how both sides could manage the network strain:

What was actually said:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/ashley_highfield/ [bbc.co.uk]

Re:Common Sense is asking too much...

[LingNoi]

You're clearly not RTFA which is on England where THEY DO advertise Unlimited Bandwidth.