So SHOULD the BBC help cover ISP costs for iPlayer?

[Rosaline]

IYeh, AFAIK the cost/performance of our net connections all boil down to BTs network/BTs charges to the ISP, and unless you are lucky enough to be in a cable area, then a BT phone line is the only reasonable choice. Lots of people complain about VM though.

BT are absolutely raking it in and they will continue to do so, because they have no competition. Maybe WiMAX will provide some competition, but i read somewhere that a trial of it in Australia didn't go very well.

The belief that BT wholesale is 'raking it in' is not true, to be honest. A fully redundant backbone is not a cheap and simple thing to upgrade and maintain, and furthermore, BT has obligations that few to none other private companies ever have. BT have government mandated requirements on their service that they are required by law to meet. Private companies can do it cheaper, as they don't have these restrictions.

WiMax a competitor to BT's backbone? Hahaha... Fibre will always carry more bandwidth than the airwaves. WiMax is about last mile when it comes to high bandwidth, not the rest of the distribution. No, what we need and BT would absolutely love (as it would get ofcom off their backs, and for additional total bandwidth) would be for more competitors to build their own proper backbone. VM has one already, of course.

If anything, it is the ISPs that are lying in claiming 'unlimited' then whinging when their customers try and use it unlimited.

It should be noted that BT Wholesale is actually busy answering this problem, building the 21st Century network which will eventually see fibre to the house. I guess they haven't commented publicly on this story as everyone will think they're the same as BT Home (which everyone, BT included, knows is just pants incarnate).

Of course, I personally believe that the infrastructure should have never been privatised in the first place, but that's a whole different rant....

[Marcos]

ISP - Internet Service Provider

cant provide the service? their own fault

[Sinizter]

building the 21st Century network

With BT it will be a 21st century network which will go live in the 22nd century. Charge as much as possible and deliver as little service as possible.

[TheAnimus]

playing devils advocate, one could argue that the traditional transmission of TV is payed for by the license, masts that are errected and such. As that is the most costly part of the distrabution, funded by the license, shouldn't the same apply to the internet?

No, as once your a LINX peer, no one cares how you route it. To use the analogy, el beeb are transmitting it to the ariel on your roof, if your flats need cable running inside, thats hardly their cost now is it?

i really can't see how 4 people have voted yes.

[colincliff]

of course the BBC should pay... they should also refund me the cost of the electricity that I use when I watch their TV channels... and perhaps some form of 'mileage' costs for the wear and tear to my hard drive when I record their shows.

[Funkstar]

i really can't see how 4 people have voted yes.

Really only 3. Someone admitted they pressed the wrong button

[peterb]

This is bordering on the "Net Neutrality" debate thathas been exercising the US Government, telcos and content providers for the last couple of years in the States. Basically, should the net be just a carrier, giving equal priority to all traffic, or should content providers be able to pay for premium quality of service for their content.

Were the BBC to pay for infrastructure upgrades, they could quite legitimately ask for 'payback' in the form of improved QoS for their traffic. Ultimately (IMHO) a bad thing for all users. However, the current situation will also be bad for users as the demand for video streaming over the internet increases and the available bandwidth slows up the net for all.

(This is not an issue for content providers such as BT or VM who can stream their content from their servers on their part of the network, rather than the public internet)

Ultimately it is the ISPs resonsibiolity to provide the service that customers require. In their attempts to attract more ciustomers (in some cases as a loss leader to tempt customers to take value added services) prices at the 'cheap' end of the market are ridiculously low - and these ISPs are looking to increase revenue any way they can - look who is or was looking at implementing the phorm advertising solution.

As for the solution - setting up a national infrastructure to rival BT's would be extremely expensive. BT comes in for a lot of stick - as an ISP perhaps some is justified, but as the operator of the national infrastructure, much is not justified.

Rosaline made a point that they operate under a fairly strict regulatory regime which among other things requires them to keep some wholesale products artificially highj to encourage competition. But setting up a competitive network is expensive, and LLU has only really taken off in large population areas where the cost of installing the exchange equipment and the backlinks to an ISP's infrastructure can be recouped. BT has a remit to provide broadband across the country - and it does (with varying speeds). Compare that with the much trumpted cable networks - the nearest competitor - that has nowhere near the penetration that BT has - and has no intention of providing it.

BT is also a victim of rising costs - 21cN will reduce those costs and improve the backbone capacity but it will not mean fibre to every home. More likely is that fibre will be delivered to centres of population at roadside cabinets, with the last few hundred yards delivered by copper.

However - if the BBC isn't going to pay for the upgrades, it will be down to the ISPs and that will inevitably lead to end user costs rising. Bandwidth isn't a free resource, so there may be a return to 'pay as you go' models (so much per Gbyte) which is familiar to GPRS mobile access or increased monthkly payments for faster speeds, but perhaps lower caps, with additional costs/GB above that. (Similar to the Zen home products)

However it pans out, this will ttrigger a shake up in broadband market.

[pauldarkside]

i really can't see how 4 people have voted yes.

Me neither, I wish they'd step forward and explain their reasoning.

I voted "no".

It's the job of the ISP to deliver content and the BBC, among others, to create content. That content is already subjected to hosting fees (including bandwidth required to deliver it to the ISP) so I'd imagine a percentage of our license fee/tax goes to covering that.

ISPs already have a tiered pricing system for bandwith limits and allocation. If the limit a user is currently on (and they're using more than their limit) isn't enough they should pay more to get to the next tier and so on. If the top tier isn't enough (generally classed as "unlimited") then the ISP is failing to provide an adequate service - it's the ISP which should invest (with their resources - they are a business after all) in sufficient infrastructure to deliver what their customer wants and increase the pricing if necessary.

I don't currently have a need for BBC's iPlayer and use less than my ISP determined monthly limit. I shouldn't have to pay more (either by way of increased license fee/tax to subsidise the ISP or though additional ISP charges) unless I want to use the extra bandwidth.

[neonplanet40]

i really can't see how 4 people have voted yes.

Its five now and i can

1) Is Tiscali
2) Is Sky
3) Is Plusnet
4) Is BT
5) Is the BBC winding the other 4 up

[Sinizter]

Maybe the BBC should become a LLU ADSL ISP ? Along with the LLU hardware (whatever they may be) they could add on a local server to cache their content for the larger exchanges.

Just talking rubbish ...

[slypie]

in a word 'NO' due to the fact that the majority of people are paying for speeds they don't even get close to. So from that respect we are being ripped off by our ISP's. They should pay me back for charging me for a 8mb line when I can only get 2.5Mb. Do you think they loose any sleep at night over this

Back to the subject they need to invest more in getting our broadband up to the standards of other western countries as our BB is crap compared to their's. We are heading to a networked society anyways and it's only going to get worse for them if they don't improve their services.

[kst1973]

Heres an idea that will never happen. Why not scrap the licence fee and make the BBC an optional paid for service? I can't imagine anyone wanting to pay £10 a month to watch the abismal rubbish they currently show. The whole cooperation would disappear along with iplayer. Problem solved.

[DR]

...the cost is not the masts the cost is the production and people sitting at desks

[b0redom]

I don't understand what the problem really is. Assuming it's the major ISPs we're talking about, they will all peer at the LINX. You can't get iplayer stuff outside of the UK, so transatlantic costs etc are a non-issue.

If my business costs go up I either have to:

1) Put up prices
2) Absorb the costs
3) Go do something else

[chicken]

If they're going to quote "Unlimited xMb Broadband" then they should either provide it Unlimited or price-band what they are offering to suit usage bands.

The BBC are in no way responsible for the ISPs marketing lies and it's about time the providers started telling the truth and set up account rates accordingly.

If they can't uphold a network capable of delivering up to 8Mbits/s Unlimited (or 2,592,000 Megabytes max over a 30 day period) to every user, which they obviously can't, then they shouldn't be calling it unlimited.

Trying to blame the BBC is just passing the buck so they can continue to fob people off.

[malakai5]

I'm quite shocked at the response - personally I think all 'parties' involved whether it be BBC, the ISP's or BT etc, etc. need to get there act together and fast or were gonna have an I-net meltdown!

Yet again WE the British publice have to put up with not only getting technological benfits last. There seems to be a real lack of 'cohesion' amoung the upper echelons of British Power concerning services proveded for the mass public.

Yes the ISP have to adapt to start coughing up the money (which I'm sure they're hoarding it) to upgrade for the future but conversely the BBC also has to play a role as well in helping (maybe not direct finance) but something along the lines 'delivery' of content.

TV lincense is now £139.50 which emcompasses mobile phones, laptops and PC and I'm concerned about delivery of content. We are paying for delivery of content via traditional means so why hasn't their new IPTV service been addressed. And lack of money at the BBC - come on the license fee brings in billions of pounds each year - I should think they can sort something out surely (just hoarding the money as usual - its a British Pastime) and only fraction is allocated for distribution in general.

The BBC Iplayer everyone raves on about isn't that great. Only the past 7 days of broadcasting content is available but compared to channel 4's 4OD service which is a back catalogue of the last 30 days of broadcasted content - Iplayer has a lot of catching up. Basically they need to stop whinging and DO something, because all they're is stalling and hoarding the money.

We are definately going to see an I-net meltdown if something is not done soon as IPTV starts to launch off seriously as the de facto method of Digital Content Delivery Service. Not too mention the fact that I do foresee everyone owning a HTPC system as the hardware technology becomes more discrete and units ending up looking like dvd players/set-top boxes!