Ofcom Backs The BBC Against ISPs April 26, 2008
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Telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has told MPs that the BBC should not be forced to pay to upgrade the UK’s broadband networks just because its iPlayer service has proved so successful.
Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards, speaking to a session of the Commons Culture, Media & Sport and Business and Enterprise committees, said:
“I am not convinced myself that the right answer to that is to get the BBC to pay for the iPlayer. It is not necessarily the only way it can happen and it is not necessarily the way we would anticipate it will happen.”
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
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Funny how there is no mention of youtube paying for its bandwidth.
ISP lack of forethought on their crappy service and inept ability to provide a decent service is not the BBC's fault they are looking for excuses ISP's should wake up and state the true speed capability of their networks and not the stupid up to speed which is never attained any way.
I visited a colleague back in 2003 who lived in Seoul (South Korea) and was enjoying a 100mb internet connection for around 45 dollars.. Five years on and I can’t even get a quarter of the 8mb connection my ISP promises me here in the UK!!
Certainly the government/BT should pay-up and allow us to catch up to the rest of the first world countries in what’s certainly the internet age.
Or maybe we can just spend the next 10 years playing the blame game.. and look on in envy as china surpasses us.
Sad Nation is right. The ISPs could start by telling the truth. When people are told again and again that they are buying UNLIMITED use, well who is to blame when they act as if they are? Charge a realistic fee and plough ALL the profits into infrastructure improvements. It's not rocket science.
I uninstalled the BBC iPlayer when I found out that the process kservice.exe was starting with windows even after I had told the BBC iPlayer not to start with windows, I don't mind sharring my files when I am downloading or watching shows but I don't want the iPlayer sucking my bandwidth every time I turn my computer on. So now I just stream the shows from the bbc site.
Since the growth in popularity of the iPlayer, my ISP (specialized in business connections) has dropped our bandwidth from effective 8MB to just above 4MB.
Sadly no one can complain because more than 80% of this ISP's clients are long term clients who have silently been upgraded from 2MB d/l connections to 8MB connections as broadband became more popular and BT started to advertise 'upto 8MB d/l'.
I thought bit torrent was the bad guy when it came to squeezing the bandwidth out of networks? Seems there's always someone to blame when the ISPs can't deliver their end of the bargain with advertised speed and unlimited usage!
The BBC should pay - they are the arm of the state - distributing the governments polictical message. Bit torrent and You tube are driven by the people - what the internet is all about. The BBC is about indoctrinating society. Why should businesses have to pay their costs?
Tony, you are horrendously misinformed. The BBC are FAR from the arm of the state. In fact your opinion on such leads me to believe you've never spent any amount of time listening to a BBC broadcast. Listen to a 5 Live radio show. They all but dog the government and freely argue both sides of a point depending on the guests opinion. If I was pushed to say, I'd say a 5 Live radio show on any subject is the only truly objective news report on that subject most of the time, certainly the newspapers are as biased as they get over here!
Speaking of biased news coverage, the BBC were the most prominent reporters on the bush election rigging scandal, running hour long secials while the american media barely said a word!