BT rubbishes BBC bandwidth throttling reports
'We're not part of the iPlayer gang'
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Swift denial BT has denied reports that it is working with other ISPs to pressurise the BBC or consumers into paying extra for delivery of iPlayer on demand TV shows.
Chief press officer Adam Liversage contacted The Reg this afternoon to distance the telco from a predictable net neutrality row. He countered reports citing unnamed BT sources in The Independent on Sunday, Financial Times, and Mail on Sunday that link the telco with comments from Tiscali boss Mary Turner. She said the bandwidth demands of the iPlayer may be too much for ISPs to bear.
Liversage wrote: "Whilst we've been fingered as 'part of the gang' in certain press reports, BT is not complaining about or discussing the implications of iPlayer with the BBC."
The IOS story had quoted a "senior insider": "It is certainly a live debate between ISPs and the BBC. If the BBC gets the numbers it wants for iPlayer then network capacity could become an issue." The paper reported that BT had made its feelings known to the Beeb's new media chief Ashley Highfield.
Liversage rebuffed the claims: "We're not up in arms about iPlayer, we're not complaining to the BBC or discussing it with them."
He wrote that BT's only concern over iPlayer was that people would be unaware that the Kontiki P2P distribution system which runs in the background would be eating into their monthly GB usage allowance even when they are not viewing or downloading.
So there you have it. ®
COMMENTS
@Frank Bough
You need a fixed line for the Box to dial home and get it's setup done. After that it will dial home or recieve updates, you also need it to program sky+ from the web.
You can disconnect the line from the box once setup is done, but Sky would prefer if you left it plugged in for at least 12 months otherwise they inccur a cost from the contract they have setup with a telco for their set-top boxes.
@p2p Andy
<quote>We never had this when kazaa was released near on 5 years ago or channel4od for that matter. SO WHY NOW</quote>
At a guess because with the BBC backing it takeup is likely to be massive. I wonder how many normal (ie not IT folk or kids) people actually use p2p, or know that Channel4OD exist?
P2P ISP Moaning
1) I *PAY* the ISP for a connection, this connection has a limit if *I* go over the limit I pay more. This basically means that if an ISP says I only have a 1 GB limit then what I choice to do with that 1GB is entirely up to me.
2) If the ISP can't cope with the bandwidth they have three options reduce the bandwidth limit, upgrade there network or change there pricing (up or down) anything else is an excuse.
3) Any P2P traffic that is confined to there IP block is cheaper for the ISP as it doesn't transit across there external links (unless there routing is wrong), this makes local caches/proxies an attractive solution but can be a legal gray area (thanks to our mostly dumb laws put in place to protect business and not customers).
4) The whole industry (ISP) is basically trying to get profit out of existing copper networks (with the old BT fibre network in places), this is never going to work in the 21st century as bandwidth requirements are only going to go up i.e. HD content.
If I was getting my internet connection for free then I would agree that they might complain about other companies using there network, as I *PAY* them to use there network with a limit I can't see how any of them can complain.
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