The story here has been massivly sensationalised in the media, it's a very open an shut case as far as I can see.
The BBC have nvented a service called BBC iPlayer.
iPlayer lets you watch TV again by downloading it.
those who want to watch bbc programs download iPLayer and get to download TV programs.
all the programs are or high resolution and use a lot of bandwidth, in fact they use so much bandwidth that it's putting a strain on the ISP.
thus the ISP needs to upgrade their networks in order to cope with the extra demand.
now the question comes down to who bears to brunt of that cost.
It should be very open and shut.
bbc pay to upload and the end user pays to download (by paying their ISP).
however, here is the proverbial fly in the ointment. the bbc iplayer is a p2p service, so in actual fact the BBC don't actually pay for all of the bandwidth that the service is using. as some of the download material that you are getting will have come from other seeds (thus is the nature of p2p).
the ISP are saying that the BBC have ducked out of paying for all the bandwidth that their service uses, and that the BBC should fund infrastructure development out of their budget to the ISPs (notable tiscalli are making the most noise)...
now here's the kicker from the ISP side.
tiscalli are offering 8mb broadband unlimited for £6.49 a month.
now they are pissed when people actually want to use all the bandwidth that they are sold. contention ratios aside Tiscalli have massivly over subscribed teir network and are now finding that it heaves under the strain of new technologies traffic...
but, they say that they (the ISP) shouldn't pass on the costs of the extra bandwidth to the customers as the customers won't like it and will move elsewhere. so they want to chanrge the BBC twice for their uploads as they will generate extra bandwidth in the future.
I say, nuts to that.
why should the BBC pay? when I download the iPlayer I effectivly agree to joina p2p network and I give my upload bandwidth in order to get better download. I've already paid for all the bandwidth that I use. (up and down).
if the ISP have over subscribed their network then they need to take their profits and upgrade their network. not go begging from a public service provider!
I mean you don't see the ISPs approaching youtube and saying "your service puts a strain on our network now we want you to pay us to upgrade our infrastructure so that it can cope with your legitimate buisiness model that provides a service.
The ISPs have threatened to cripple the p2p traffic for the Iplayer, in a bid to 'manage' their network traffic.
in response to this the BBC said that they'd publish a black list of ISPs to avoid since they cripple traffic.
in my mind that's not an empty threat, thats a great public service that will help you to decide what ISP to go to. I for one don't want to pay for my always on unlimited download service, only to find that it's not actually unlimited because they completly cripple my traffic and limit it. (and yes I do understand about contention and peak time capping and all of that, and think that comes under reasonable network management, crippling a popular service just because it's popular and thus uses a lot of bandwidth is not reasonable network management).
this seems like a very simple case for me. ISPs, if they want to keep customers need to upgrade their infrastructure to cope with the ever increasing demand for information (as in binary information) that consumers want.
if they need more money to do this then they need to get the money to improve the customers network from the customers.
this can be from sellng capped services for all I care.
it is unreasonable to sell an unlimited service for £6.49 a month and expect that people just won't bother using it.
Tiscalli need to take a good hard look at their business model and see how they have tried to undercut their competition to get a greater market share, which in turn has backfired as customers actually want to use the service that they were offered that the ISP could not provide...
I realise that you pay for your upload bandwidth David, but assume for a minute that you were running a p2p service, would you happily pay for extra bandwidth used for the people involved in your peer network, even after you'd stopped uploading?
I wouldn't.
it's not the BBC width the bare faced bloody cheek, it's the ISPs. they are there selling high availability high capacity networks, (or at least telling us they are), now they need to come up with the goods and provide us what we've all paid for.
