iPlayer not so popular with ISPs

by Jan Harris

The BBC’s iPlayer service, which offers seven-day catch-up television via the internet, has proved highly popular with viewers, but this popularity is causing problems for ISPs.

In the first couple of months after iPlayer’s launch on December 25th, the service either streamed or downloaded over 17 million television programmes.

According to ISPs, the iPlayer and similar services, are slowing networks to such an extent that they will need to be upgraded to cope with the additional traffic.

The iPlayer alone is estimated to be currently slowing the network by between 3 and 5%.

Simon Gunter, from Tiscali, is now calling for the BBC to contribute to the cost of network upgrades, which Ofcom estimates at around £830m.

However, Ashley Highfield, the BBC’s head of future media and technology, says that ISPs will benefit from iPlayer, and should bear the costs themselves. He has even published a 19-point plan for ISPs on his blog.

The BBC has now threatened to name and shame those ISPs who try to restrict downloads from iPlayer through a process known as traffic throttling, which has previously be used to control illegal peer-to-peer file sharing.

It is to be hoped that a way forward can be found sooner rather than later, as analysts such as Nemertes Research, are warning that unless the situation is resolved, the Internet could be gridlocked by 2010.

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