BT Wants Cash For iPlayer, Video Bandwidth

eldavojohn writes "British Telecom is asking for more money for the bandwidth that iPlayer and video streaming sites eat up. The BBC's Tech Editor is claiming that 'Now Britain's biggest internet service provider is making it clear that, in a cut-throat broadband market, something is going to have to give — and net neutrality may have to be chucked overboard.' The BBC and BT are currently already in talks over how to get past this together. This might sound like a familiar battle from over a year ago."

Comments

This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth

[MosesJones]

BT have a TV over the internet offer called "BT Vision" its suffering (and just lost its CEO) in competition with Rupert "any view that pays" Murdoch's Sky. Now if BT could get a richer experience out of iPlayer and access to a longer back catalogue than simply the last 7 days then this would help them in competition with Sky.

So I'd expect this to end up with BT agreeing to support iPlayer in the same way but an "interesting" tie-up between BT and the BBC around the delivery of iPlayer+ features to its BT Vision customers.

Re:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth

[FrostedWheat]

BT Vision is awful. Depressing and misleading adverts, the sales people on the phone lie to get you to sign up, no lives channels beyond the standard Freeview stuff, poor image quality and even after paying your monthly subscription you still can't access most of their online content without paying extra. The sooner it goes away the better.

Re:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth

[ZigiSamblak]

This is just BT believing that because they used to be the national phone service they have a right to dominate any communications market and charge whatever they like. We have a similar company in the Netherlands KPN who used to be the national telephone and post service but since they were privatized have shown a total disregard for fair competition from other companies and tried every trick in the book to hold their dominant position so they can abuse it to make bigger profits.

No doubt there are some influential contacts in the government who get paid well for these agreements. If you ask me the expense scandal in the UK is just the top of the iceberg and our governments are basically nearly as corrupt as the US, they just make more effort to hide it.

Re:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth

[smoker2]

BT Vision is Freeview TV, with a hard drive. The part that needs broadband is minimal. Here are a list of "Features" :

• Pause rewind and record Live TV
  The Vision+ box is a digital TV recorder that lets you pause, record and rewind live TV.
• 160 GB hard drive
  Record and store up to 80 hours of Freeview TV with the huge 160 GB hard drive.
• # Dual tuners
  The Vision+ box's dual tuners can record one or two programmes at once while you watch another recording.
• Record whole TV series
  The TV guide shows scheduling 14 days in advance. Simply press the R button twice to record a whole series.
• HD Experience
  The HD Vision+ box gives you selected films and TV in crystal clear, High Definition picture and sound quality.
• # Convenient billing
  Any pay per view movies, sport, music or TV shows you watch will be added to your next BT Vision bill. If you take one of our Value Packs, you will be billed in advance each month.

Combined with bittorrent, I already have what they are offering. Except their speeds are derisory. I recently switched provider to Be, and experienced a doubling in download bandwidth, and a trebling in upload bandwidth, for 25% less per month including a fixed IP. Plus BT claimed that "it was not possible to get faster speeds on my line". Funny that, considering you need a BT phone line to sign up with Be. But now I'm not with BT broadband, I can't get BT Vision. So there was no net neutrality in this case. All their stuff was prioritised already.

Re:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth

[moggie_xev]

I recently switched provider to Be, and experienced a doubling in download bandwidth, and a trebling in upload bandwidth, for 25% less per month including a fixed IP. Plus BT claimed that "it was not possible to get faster speeds on my line". Funny that, considering you need a BT phone line to sign up with Be. But now I'm not with BT broadband, I can't get BT Vision. So there was no net neutrality in this case. All their stuff was prioritised already.

I am just about to move house but I have used Be for the last two years. I have called them a couple of times with technical questions and they have always solved them quickly ( under 20 minutes ). Even canceling my service with them easy.
I have 18Mbits/second down and 1.5Mbits/second up. They are a great service provider.

Re:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth

[kyz]

BT, the monopoly provider of telephone landlines in most of the UK, only have IPstream in their exchanges, which has a maximum speed of 8Mbps. Most broadband providers, including BT Broadband, are merely reselling this 8Mbps access.

Be, Virgin and TalkTalk took advantage of the OLO (other licensed operator) scheme that BT was forced by OFTEL/OFCOM to provide. They put their equipment in BT's exchanges. They can provide broadband speeds higher than 8Mbps.

However, in order get access to those other providers inside BT's exchanges, you need a BT line, even if you never use the BT line. Sure, it sucks to be you, but what's the alternative? Other operators would be forced to build and operate all their own cables and exchanges, rather than rent a corner of BT's exchange, and given they don't have access rights to the land like BT does, there are many places they wouldn't be able to go.

That's the tradeoff - you can get better-than-BT broadband almost anywhere in the country because you need a BT line.

Re:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

somebody should torture the actors 'adam and jane' who are the bt couple by making them use bt products.

Re:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth

[Tikkun]

So what you're saying is that piracy is the better quality option, right? ;)

Re:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

"However, in order get access to those other providers inside BT's exchanges, you need a BT line, even if you never use the BT line."

But as soon as you go to one of the "other providers" your line is no longer managed by BT (it's LLU'd) and therefore you don't pay BT any money.

Re:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth

[c0p0n]

Err I thought that the bandwidth was already paid for with my monthly bill... it's that or they shouldn't be selling 10 meg lines with "unlimited downloads" in the first place.

Re:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth

[Teun]

You seem to be from a different set of Netherlands than where I live...

KPN has over the years acquired many of their important competitors but are still not a monopoly.
It's sooner the cable providers than the ADSL ones that need competition. Just look at the price differences between say Het Net and Xs4all, both KPN
Nor have I even heard a peep from KPN like suggesting preferential treatment for some kinds of data.

I strongly oppose the idea The Netherlands suffers corruption at this level of decision making but some unhealthy 'networking' could have taken place around the time of privatisation.

After all, compared to The UK with it's single party government and only 2 major parties in the legislature we are a real parliamentary democracy, checks and balances are very healthy.

Re:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth

[Keeper Of Keys]

Thirded. Be technical support is very good and, as you say, the broadband speeds are the fastest I have experienced with a domestic ISP. I would thoroughly recommend them.

Re:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth

[Keeper Of Keys]

You still have to pay line rental to BT.

Re:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

I have Tiscali phone and broadband. It's through the BT phone line, but I don't pay BT anything. Presumably Tiscali do, on my behalf.

I'm now paying £15/month for a better service (phone, 8Mbit/s broadband, some free weekend phone calls thrown in) than I was getting from BT for £36/month. I've heard bad things about Tiscali, but have experienced much worse things from BT.

Re:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly.

I've just spend the last hour trying to find a broadband solution for my company that, to be fair, is not shit.

I may have to use have the same BT exchange, but I'll definitely go with a company that doesn't cap my download & upload limits to far more that what ADSL 2 can provide.

It's remarkable that the competing company is offering more for less money - guess that's the effect of BT's monopoly.

Re:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth

[thetroll123]

Actually, there's a loophole here. If you don't pay your phone bills, your BT service will be disconnected, but the broadband line continues to work. (Optional for the conscientious: Then settle the outstanding debt with BT, but don't ask to be reconnected.) I've done this in all my last three places, worked fine until I moved out, two years in one case, nearly a year in the other two. Bethere.co.uk in all cases.

Re:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I think it's that the whole thing stinks and isn't worth paying for OR pirating.

Non-issue

[Brian Gordon]

This shouldn't be an issue at all; the BBC's ISP should be charging them a fortune for their high bandwidth use and then the squabble is between ISPs for peering costs. Also BT should be charging by the gigabyte instead of offering unrealistic "unlimited" packages that cause problems when people actually use their bandwidth.

Re:Non-issue

[noundi]

These motherfuckers make me see red. You pay for a service and you're not supposed to use it!? Burn down the entire fucking BT HQ, because this mafia behaviour is really, really getting on my fucking nerves.

Re:Non-issue

[L4t3r4lu5]

I've often suggested trashing local exchanges. Then I realised that I'd just end up in jail.

Boycott them financially instead. It makes more sense. Money is your weapon.

Re:Non-issue

[SimonTheSoundMan]

BT are already on the ball. From 4pm to midnight, iPlayer is unusable for me, rebuffers every 10 seconds. Other services such as Youtube and Vimeo suffer too.

Re:Non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, as Bill Gates has said, 640KB is enough for everyone. Anyone needing more than 640KB per month is a pirate, because bandwidth is fucking damned expensive.

Except in places like Sweden, South Korea or Hong Kong where everyone is downloading by the gigabytes every week (hell, even every day for some users) with no problem. But everyone knows those places don't really exist. It's just a global conspiracy to spread false rumors by the likes of thepiratebay.org.

Re:Non-issue

[noundi]

Boycott them financially instead. It makes more sense. Money is your weapon.

Try to tell that to a nation (= any nation) full of clueless idiots that don't understand the meaning of consumer.

Still my statement was merely symbolic. I do agree that civilised behaviour is better. Though I'm more pissed off at the people than the mafia corps. Mindless fucking zombies walking around eating this kind of shit without ever even knowing what hit them. Serves them right for being so ignorant, but then again it affects those that aren't as such.

Re:Non-issue

[Phydaux]

I've noticed this recently too. I used to be able to watch BBC programs using the High Quality setting without problem, but like you say, sometimes at peak times I can wait 30mins for a 5min you-tube video to load, or a BBC iPlayer program is constantly buffering. And I pay for an "Unlimited" package.

If I had a viable alternative to BT in my area I would switch already, but I'm in one of the many areas that BT still haven't done LLU on my local exchange so the only real competitors are companies I hate more than BT.

Re:Non-issue

[Brian Gordon]

That may just be peak hours.

Re:Non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

This shouldn't be an issue at all; the BBC's ISP should be charging them a fortune for their high bandwidth use and then the squabble is between ISPs for peering costs.

I seem to recall from a visit to the BBC's research lab that the BBC itself has peering agreements -- ie, it is its own ISP.

Re:Non-issue

[Brian Gordon]

You forgot Japan, which has the best infrastructure in the world. The US and UK, however, have poor infrastructure and it actually does cost telecoms tons of money to bring broadband to households.

Re:Non-issue

[DanEllisUK]

It is not the companies that concern me, they have marketing departments that exist solely to make their products seem better than they are, and that is the same with all companies.

My anger is at the watchdog, Ofcom, that continually allow these companies to lie.

Re:Non-issue

[JTL21]

Erm, the BBC don't have an ISP. They produce enough traffic in the UK that they peer directly with most UK ISPs at LINX.

BT's cost is only on its internal network, they won't be paying someone else for bandwidth.

BTs customers are paying for a connection speed e.g. 2Mbit and they should be able to get that rate from the BBC if they want. BT needs to change its customer charging infrastructure not bitch and whine

Re:Non-issue

[arkhan_jg]

This shouldn't be an issue at all; the BBC's ISP should be charging them a fortune for their high bandwidth use and then the squabble is between ISPs for peering costs. Also BT should be charging by the gigabyte instead of offering unrealistic "unlimited" packages that cause problems when people actually use their bandwidth.

Both of these already take place more or less; the BBC does pay an ungodly amount for bandwidth already.

BT's packages also have a 40GB soft limit in their FUP - virtually no british home user ADSL ISPs offer a truly unlimited service any more, you need to get a business class ADSL account for £80-100 a month or so.

BT also throttle video streaming down to 750Kb/s in peak periods on the standard packages, so users already have limited access to the higher quality streams on iplayer in the evening with BT, something a number of other ISPs have been using lately in their adverts.

So not only are the BBC paying for their bandwidth, and users are paying through the nose for a pretty limited service, BT now want to double dip and charge twice for the same content, with the BBC picking up the bill instead of the customers.

Must be good business when you're an ex-public service monopoly and still the largest ISP, and can get away with bullshit like this.

Re:Non-issue

[ijakings]

Really? No problems for me on my LLU ISP. Maybe you should consider one of those instead. Most exchanges are LLU these days, unless it is you really have no excuse to still be with BT's overpriced and underserviced offering. One example of this, on my LLU ISP when it was first activated it was only at 1meg down 256 up, I should have been on their max offering with 2.2ish down and 768 up. Were I with a BT ISP this would have probably taken a fault report to BT to get them to fix their DSLAM, but with this ISP it was done in 5 mins, no hassle. It was a freephone number too. BT are a fail, if you continue to give them money (even on an ISP that uses their network) you are asking for trouble.

Re:Non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had a viable alternative to BT in my area I would switch already, but I'm in one of the many areas that BT still haven't done LLU on my local exchange so the only real competitors are companies I hate more than BT.

You can use any of the ISPs that offer a service through a BT line. You'll pay BT for phone line rental, but you'll pay the other ISP for your broadband. Even if the speed isn't any greater, at least you're not giving BT as much money.

Re:Non-issue

[noundi]

Kiddie? And you're supposed to be a big boy behind the AC sig? No you clearly misunderstood me. The point was not to burn the building down, but I accept your short sighted ignorance for now. The point was that the service providers sell a product. You as a consumer buy that product. Not a similar product. When the service provider goes "oops, we promised too much, we weren't exactly expecting you to use the capacity you purchased", you just sit there and take it up the ass. I don't.

Re:Non-issue

[tinkerghost]

This shouldn't be an issue at all; the BBC's ISP should be charging them a fortune for their high bandwidth use and then the squabble is between ISPs for peering costs.

Please, how can large companies afford to pay their CEOs obscene salaries if their busy charging each other instead of ass raping their customers?

Providing service and value for payment is so last century.

Re:Non-issue

[clare-ents]

The BBC are peered with every UK ISP. If you don't peer with the BBC you don't get any content at all. The BBC doesn't pay for bandwidth at all.

Historically the ISPs have concluded that in the UK your broadband should come with access to the BBC.

It's essentially going to be a peering spat, BT may pull peering from the BBC and try to get the BBC to pay. The BBC will cut off access to all streaming services if they do it. BTs customers will flee.

If the BBC are really nasty, I bet they could get a superb deal for streaming from Sprint who transit BT and nail BT for a huge transit bill for delivering the content.

Re:Non-issue

[TheRaven64]

I've seen similar issues on Virgin Media. When watching iPlayer streams, the player frequently buffers and then complains that there is insufficient bandwidth. Looking at the network monitor, it's getting around 40KB/s average. Strangely, if I use iplayer-dl, I can grab the show at 1.1MB/s, which typically only takes about 2 minutes and then I can watch it without any problems. Oh, and the CPU load is much lower using QuickTime on the downloaded version than using the Flash thing. For about two weeks, there was a problem where after 10 minutes of playing, it would drop to about one frame every 2 seconds (network monitor showed no drop in bandwidth used), so I am more inclined to blame the crappy coding in either Flash or the iPlayer flash program than the network.

Re:Non-issue

[DrogMan]

You have a viable alternative - or rather about 130 of them, so get clued-up, ask BT retail for a MAC and migrate to another provider who can provide you with the service you want.

The BT Wholesale network is actually rather good. BT Retail is just one of 130 ISPs who use the BT wholesale network, and they're a particularly bad example.

It's vitally important to not confuse the two, and do not let BT tell you otherwise. I have BT copper to my home/office, I pay BT the minimum amount a month for this copper, but my Internet access is through the BT wholesale network, via another ISP, not BT.

Re:Non-issue

[Lonewolf666]

Of course it is debatable where the bandwidth cap should be, depending in the infrastructure maybe 100GB/month are actually reasonable.

But GP's point was that BT should stop whining and bill people for what they actually use. If you need more bandwidth, get a plan with a higher cap. Problem solved. I fully agree with him.

Re:Non-issue

[Roger W Moore]

Try to tell that to a nation (= any nation) full of clueless idiots that don't understand the meaning of consumer.

Ah but this will hit "the clueless idiots" where it hurts. If the other ISPs advertise that you can get BBC iPlayer with them but not with BT I imagine that there will be quite an effect.

Re:Non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

It was revealed that BT limits traffic within certain hours for their cheapest package. The thing is though it's not just the cheapest package. I'm on the 2nd highest package (assuming the pricing structure hasn't changed) and video comes to a stand still in the evening and then amazingly becomes super fast in the middle of the night.

I'll definitely be switching soon but I'm not sure where to go because a lot of the other options, unfortunately, seem just as bad.

Re:Non-issue

[sy5t3m]

Let's burn down this building because....
Burn down the building, really?
NO! You misunderstood me!

The comment about not being able to use the service you paid for made up less than one third of your post and you did in fact say that the building should be burnt down because they had pissed you off.
If you feel that you have been misunderstood and did not intend for arson to be your main point, perhaps you should consult a doctor about Alien Hand Syndrome

P.S. Despite the criminal charge of incitement having been aboloshed in the UK last year, it was replaced with 3 new offences of encouraging or assisting. Would it not have been wise to use the AC tag yourself?

Re:Non-issue

[jaseuk]

Ah, you are missing the key point in UK broadband economics. The link between ADSL ISPs and the exchanges are charged for by BT OpenReach or Wholesale (can't remember which one off the top of my head).

These "centrals" are extremely expensive, because this is how BT Openreach/Wholesale recoup the costs of the network of exchanges.

Take a look at:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/ioi/bbpricing/model.pdf

Rental of a 155Mbit backhaul was £347K annually, with a charge of £2.76 per averaged utilisation per k/bit s a year. Assuming my calculations are correct, that means that to give a user a 1:1 contention on a 1Mbit connection (and have the user use it all), that would cost the Service Provider around £5,100 in central rental and usage fees alone.

Remember that BT the ISP, is seperate from OpenReach/Wholesale so they must pay these fees!

Jason

Re:Non-issue

[noundi]

Ah but this will hit "the clueless idiots" where it hurts. If the other ISPs advertise that you can get BBC iPlayer with them but not with BT I imagine that there will be quite an effect.

Very true. But by allowing BT to open this box of Pandora you never know what's next. This time it's iPlayer, what happens when you have to choose an ISP based on a package of 100+ services? How is such a zombie consumer supposed to know the "right" choice? We both know what happens. Whatever is more convenient will be the choice, mimicing what the Telecom industry has become and killing anything even related to net neutrality, shifting the power to control internet to the corps. Nobody gives a rats ass about the rates anymore, it's about having to lift as few fingers as possible. We take phones for granted, and we're very close to have the same mentality towards internet.

In this matter I'd sacrifice freedom of choice for total freedom. Besides ISPs would only be shooting themselves in the foot as they will have a hard fucking time trying to keep up with internet, harming only one party: the consumer. Today it's iPlayer, who knows where tomorrows traffic goes?

I see nothing good come out of this. And when I see nothing good I see no reason to adopt it. I don't know if it's just me but that's just how my logic works.

Re:Non-issue

[noundi]

Wow you really focus on the arson part, don't you? Please go ahead and disregard the entire point of my comment. Because it's better to focus on irrelevant words and not discuss the topic at hand when in a forum.

P.S. I'm not a resident of the UK. Would it not have been wise to use the AC tag yourself when posting offtopic?

Re:Non-issue

[sy5t3m]

I use entanet and I'm pretty impressed by their stance on certain issues.
Their CTO on iplayer
Enta against Phorm

They work through resellers like Aquiss, ADSL24, UKFSN, Freeola, Seriously, Vivaciti and others. They sell plans by the peak allowance amount, with massive limits during off-peak and don't try to limit what software or protocols you use.

Re:Non-issue

[mrrudge]

I know a few people who had a plays-the-first-ten-minutes-then-stops issue. Upgrading the flash player to the latest version seemed to clear most of them.

Re:Non-issue

[JasterBobaMereel]

This is BT Wholesale who are asking for more from BBC

      This means it will affect you and anyone who uses one of the 125 ISP's who use BT Wholesale and not another provider ....

Re:Non-issue

[sy5t3m]

I guess that explains your poor grasp of some basic english words then. Words such as "entire".

1: having no element or part left out : whole
2: complete in degree : total
3 a: consisting of one piece b: homogeneous, unmixed c: intact

30% of a comment does not constitute the whole or total.
You also mention that some of your words are irrelevant and say that I am off topic.

Irrelevant:
having no bearing on or connection with the subject at issue;

Off topic:
Not related to the matter under discussion

In case you did not notice, the topic at hand in this little thread is your post about burning down a building and then your claims of being misunderstood and slamming an AC when they disagree with you. If you can't defend your posts against contradictory viewpoints without complaining that people are off topic or ignorant, then blogging might suit you better than forums.

Re:Non-issue

[TheSpoom]

Sorry, either they're actively interfering with the GP's bandwidth or they just have really shitty service.

There's no way YouTube itself is unusable between those hours -- because it's usable to me practically all of the time on any (broadband) connection I've used.

Re:Non-issue

[TheRaven64]

It didn't for me on Mac/PowerPC, although possibly it is fixed in a version of Flash that isn't yet ported to this platform.

Re:Non-issue

[noundi]

Really now? This is the last post as this is getting tiresome.

1. The point of a sentence is not defined by the percentage of its contents.
2. I say that some words were irrelevant to the subject, but relevant to how I chose to deliver my point.
3. This thread is not about burning down buildings. The AC misunderstood and I quickly pointed him to the subject. If you read my response I drop the irrelevant focus on arson and try to explain to said idiot further:

The point was not to burn the building down, but I accept your short sighted ignorance for now. The point was that the service providers sell a product. You as a consumer buy that product. Not a similar product. When the service provider goes "oops, we promised too much, we weren't exactly expecting you to use the capacity you purchased", you just sit there and take it up the ass. I don't.

4. You then persist to bring the focus back on arson when I've already explained that this wasn't the point of my thread. Any idiot that has ever used the word "fuck" in a sentence regarding anything else than fornicating would understand me, appearantly you don't. Ergo you posted offtopic.
5. There's not a single contradiction in my posts. These are your empty words.
6. I'm guessing that AC was you. Nobody takes someone elses battle that far.
7. Welcome to slashdot.

Re:Non-issue

[hawkinspeter]

Sky broadband provide a "MAX" package that allows unlimited bandwidth at speeds of up to 16Mbit - costs £10 a month if you have other products with them.

Re:Non-issue

[smallfries]

BT's packages also have a 40GB soft limit in their FUP - virtually no british home user ADSL ISPs (who use IPstream) offer a truly unlimited service any more, you need to get a business class ADSL account for ã80-100 a month or so.

Slight correction. Be were always quite happy with massive bandwidth usage. I think they do have some kind of soft limit - but it's somewhere north of 400G a month.

Re:Non-issue

[smallfries]

Your numbers are a little bit off: £347k / 155 = £2239/Mbit/year. Unless your £5100 figure is adding in some other cost as well?

An interesting way to look it is that usage caps in the uk are always GB/month. That 155Mb pipe would transfer 60*60*24*31*155=415152000Mb per month, or 48,330GB/month. The link would cost £39k/month for a price of about £1.24/GB/month. Scary huh? So all of those £20/pm packages with 40GB caps are already loss-leaders...

Re:Non-issue

[sy5t3m]

You guess wrong. If I was the AC, I would either have continued posting AC or not posted AC at all.
I happen to agree strongly with the AC who posted. Saying "burn down the entire fucking BT HQ" because of a story that does not even affect you (Yeah, that's right, iPlayer is not even available outside the UK) is for fucknuts.

Any "idiot" who has ever used the word fuck usually does not say something along the lines of "I want to fuck your sister in the ass. Paying for bandwidth I can't use pisses me off" and then claim to have not actually meant anything to do with your sister.

Anyways, I'm bored with this shit.

Re:Non-issue

[Just Some Guy]

Can anyone reconcile:

Erm, the BBC don't have an ISP. They produce enough traffic in the UK that they peer directly with most UK ISPs at LINX.

with:

Both of these already take place more or less; the BBC does pay an ungodly amount for bandwidth already.

Both are "interesting" and "informative" contradictory answers to the same question.

Re:Non-issue

[arkhan_jg]

Only applies if there's LLU equipment in your exchange; if you're in a non-sky LLU exchange (about 60% of them) there's a 40GB cap.

Re:Non-issue

[arkhan_jg]

International traffic - though the iplayer isn't available outside the UK, plenty of other BBC services are.

Re:Non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

These motherfuckers make me see red. You pay for a service and you're not supposed to use it!? Burn down the entire fucking BT HQ, because this mafia behaviour is really, really getting on my fucking nerves.

Agreed. I think BT are simply the worst broadband company I've ever had the pleasure of being stuck in a contract with. They are nothing but criminals and I'd shut them down in a second.

Re:Non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

BT has very agresive cancellation charges, especially for broadband.

If one cancels its a minimum cancelation charge of £25 right up to around £200.

They will usual cash in on the higher cancellation amount as customers are very unhappy with the broadband service as soon as they get it and try to cancel and then are hit by cancellation charge.

What BT usual try not to remind customers is that there's a 10 day cooling off period, so customer should hammer there service to see how it holds up then cancel if disatisfied, obviously then is the issue of getting to someone on the phone to tell them you wanted to cancel.

Re:Non-issue

[Just Some Guy]

But doesn't peering imply that they're not paying for bandwidth, especially since their traffic is likely to be almost entirely outbound?

Re:Non-issue

[toriver]

They do not have an intermediate ISP sitting between them and the "backbone", but they compensate by themselves having all the techs and equipment that an ISP would have charged them bandwidth costs to finance.

It all comes down to the BBC and J. Random ISP (i.e. BT) having different business models. It is not mandatory to use an ISP any more than it is mandatory to use a restaurant to eat.

Re:Non-issue

[jpop32]

So not only are the BBC paying for their bandwidth, and users are paying through the nose for a pretty limited service, BT now want to double dip and charge twice for the same content, with the BBC picking up the bill instead of the customers.

Instead? Nope. They want to charge at BOTH ends of the pipe, server AND consumer. That's like charging you for recieving calls on your mobile because lots of people want to talk to you. Why isn't anyone framing the problem like this? Then it becomes crystal clear what kind of idiocy their demand is.

I pay a monthly fee for for my DSL service, which includes flat rate transfers. So, any bytes that come down the pipe, wherever they come from, their transfer is already paid. The ISP isn't providing the BBC a free service. It's providing a paid service to me, the person who watches BBC content.

Re:Non-issue

[sonicmerlin]

Somehow that strikes me as wrong considering how much profit BT makes, and considering the high-speeds in other countries.

Re:Non-issue

[jaseuk]

My figures were right I think. There is a RENTAL charge for the pipe, plus a USAGE charge for the traffic.

I also didn't include the costs of actually enabling the end-users phone line for ADSL, that's another £8-9 a user a month.

Of course after all this, the ISP also has got to provide the onward internet connectivity, maintain there own infrastructure and cover their operational costs.

Jason

Re:Non-issue

[JTL21]

Good point about BT's costs. I've just been reading the Digital Britain report and this is really the "Middle Mile" problem it talks about.

What seems to be needed is competition (or tougher regulation) on the intercity/intertown networks.

My point that the BBC don't have an ISP to pay still stands.

Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

So video over IP is wasting BT's bandwidth eh? How about increasing the bandwidth instead of reducing the share of it subscribers are allowed to get? This is typical greedy telco mentality: let's milk the existing infrastructure for all it's worth, instead of investing in said infrastructure. Heck, if Japan or Korea ISPs can provide very high bandwidth residential internet to their customers, why couldn't the UK? This is called investing in the future, and it's what we need in times of economic crisis.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[Rogerborg]

Look, I'm going to type this really slowly so that you understand.

The choice quotes in this article are slighly misleading. The issue isn't the "cost" to BT of carrying the bits. That's as close to nil as makes no difference. The issue for BT is that they are running out of capacity to carry those bits, and will have to upgrade their infrastructure, as you note.

Heck, if Japan or Korea ISPs can provide very high bandwidth residential internet to their customers, why couldn't the UK?

Who. Pays. For. It?

Who pays the wages of the guys digging the holes? Who pays for the fiber that goes in them, and the switches and routers?

That's all BT are arguing over: whether they have to increase the cost to consumers directly, or whether they can tax the producers (who will then have to tax the consumers through the 'television' license fee).

The only issue here is who's going to look like the bad guys for making the populace pay for upgrading BT's infrastructure. BT would prefer that the BBC do the squeezing, that's all.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[carlc75]

This is the curse of having a pre-existing infrastructure. We cannot simple lay new networks of fiber like Korea and Japan, we have a rather large network of copper that runs everywhere. Economically we can only upgrade bits at a time.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is all the fault of the iPlayer? I really couldn't give a rats arse about BTs incompetence. Why are they not asking youtube for money to dig them out of their own stupid hole. Frankly I'd rather see BT go bankrupt, be broken up and sold into little bits.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[Trahloc]

Your point has merit if all of BT's fiber is maxed out with 10gbps equipment and its just impossible for them to get more fiber. Strangely I doubt they've done that as any company with the foresight and willingness to upgrade their entire infrastructure to 10gbps would figure out how to get more fiber where its needed. These guys are just greedy and poor planners.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[slim]

The only issue here is who's going to look like the bad guys for making the populace pay for upgrading BT's infrastructure. BT would prefer that the BBC do the squeezing, that's all.

This is exactly right, but it's pretty evident that the BBC shouldn't be paying for general-purpose bandwidth. Just because iPlayer's the driver right now, doesn't mean all kinds of other services that rely on high bandwidth will benefit.

If it's to be subsidised (for which there is a case - having consumers with good connectivity stimulates the online economy) it should be from some other form of taxation.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[smallfries]

That's a really generic argument, so I'm guessing that you are not from the uk. Correct me if I'm wrong.

BT have already squeezed the money out for their upgrade. After the Century-21 roll-out they have enough fibre in place to handle video traffic. After getting to maintain their monopoly for a few years beyond when they should have because DSL didn't fit into the legal view for breaking their monopoly on POTS - they got to rape the entire UK internet industry for bandwidth charges.

They have already collected enough tolls. This is not about who pays for infrastructure upgrades. The backbone is in place, only the exchange endpoints need upgrading and they do not pay for that. Local loop unbundling means that the ISPs pay for that.

The truth is that BT is a monopolist who grew fat collecting tolls. And it wants to find a new place for tolls now that it is not allowed to collect the old ones.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[Tony Hoyle]

You're confusing BT Openreach - who own the 21cn infrastructure, and have plenty of bandwidth, with BT Broadband, a 2 bit ISP who can't be arsed to pay for any of that bandwidth to actually serve customers.

It's BT Broadband who are trying to get cash out of the BBC.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[cliffski]

Excellent post. But this is slashdot. "Information wants to be free" and everyone associated with making it and producing it should work for free too apparently.

I agree, it makes no fucking sense.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

As noted elsewhere, that's OpenReaches problem. But even if it was BT Broadbands problem, surely the answer would be to charge an appropriate price per MB/GB/whatever? I mean, really, it's fairly simple business issue -- you need to make enough money to cover your costs!

Dodgy analogy: If Tesco were selling soooo many packets of Corn Flakes that they were running out of space in their warehouses, then using the BT-School-of-Business route, they'd want to charge the customer the same for the Corn Flakes and *also* charge Kelogs for the privileged of Tesco selling them! Whereas obviously, they need to make enough money by selling products to invest in building the infrastructure to deliver it all.

Actually... I don't normally resort to expletives, but what sort of a fucking prick is John Petter? I mean seriously, either he's a clown with no business nouse at all (has he though of a career in banking?), or he *does* know exactly what he's doing and he's trying to take the public for a ride.

I'm sick an tired of these cunts -- we need to have a cull!! :D

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[Anonymous Coward]

BT has millions of customers who *already* pay for an internet service. Do they expect to be paid twice???

If BT can't afford to upgrade its infrastructure, then that's their problem. They can easily pass on the cost to their customers, the ones who are demanding BBC content.

I pay the BBC (through the licence fee) to provide a content service. I'm not a BT internet customer. Why should my tax pounds be used to pay for BTs infrastructure? It's got nothing to do with me.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[Xest]

I don't think anyone misses your point that someone has to pay for it. The problem is that we are paying for it and BT still aren't investing.

The issue is that countries like Japan, South Korea, Sweden have much heavier internet users due to IPTV, VOIP and that sort of thing being more common place couple with piracy being even more prolific over there and yet still manage to provide faster connections at a lower price and hence a lower profit margin.

BT has the money to do this but due to having an effective monopoly still in the UK albeit not as strongly as they used to they can get away with not bothering to upgrade as they're still guaranteed a massive set of customers that have no choice but to go via them no matter how bad a service they provide because they pocket the money rather than investing in better infrastructure.

With 21cn BT argued that everyone else should have to pay for it but them, it was an infrastructure upgrade but they were refusing to roll out access to it unless they got government subsidy or unless OFCOM changes the rules to help them hold onto their monopoly. BT had already paid for the upgrade but was simply holding the country to ransom over it. The very fact they could afford to do it in the first place but refuse to roll it out is proof enough that they had the money to pay for it and where do you think that money came from? It came from the customers - that is, we've already paid for it, but BT want us all to pay for it a second time over so that they could take the cost of the upgrade as pure profit.

There is no shortage of money to pay for infrastructure in the UK, the amount of customers, the proportionally lower amounts of bandwidth usage compared to many other nations with better, no more subsidised telecomms networks, the higher charge for internet access and bandwidth, the higher costs of line rental than most other companies means that the money is already there for infrastructure upgrades.

The parent to your post was right - this really is about convincing the telco to invest rather than increase profits as far as possible without doing so. What do BT care what the interests of the country are if they can boost their profits by literally billions by not bothering to invest and there being no serious competition to leave them worried? Again, BT do not have a shortage of money to do infrastructure improvements as they've demonstrated every time they've finally been forced into it or similar so the who pays question is not relevant here because we, the customers have again already paid. In a way I can even understand why BT want to hold onto the profits - so they can invest abroad now they're truly global and they can grow as a company, the problem is this doesn't benefit the country and as they do have what is effectively a state granted monopoly as a result of privatisation then they should be forced into factoring in the needs of the country into their calculations that made them into the global business giant they are now.

I believe this will change, competitors are coming around and growing, but they're still no real threat so we're looking at at least 5 - 10 years at minimum. There's still too many legacy issues that allow BT to maintain a stranglehold such as the fact that if you go with a new telco and they go bust (ironically because of BTs monopolist business practices) then you default back to BTs network - not a competitors, but BTs.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[Anonymous Coward]

Either way, BT is BT, and BT is a greedy, monopoly-minded company.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[JasterBobaMereel]

BT is BT is BT

BT OpenReach manage the infrastructure, BT Broadband are an ISP, BT Wholesale sell that infrastructure to ISP's (including BT Retail)

This is coming from BT Retail, but will almost certainly affect all BT Wholesale customer and that means almost all ISP's in the UK

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[Anonymous Coward]

The only issue here is who's going to look like the bad guys for making the populace pay for upgrading BT's infrastructure. BT would prefer that the BBC do the squeezing, that's all.

There is another issue: which BT manager(s) should lose their jobs for selling non-existent bandwidth?

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[Anonymous Coward]

The only issue here is who's going to look like the bad guys for making the populace pay for upgrading BT's infrastructure. BT would prefer that the BBC do the squeezing, that's all.

There is another issue: which manager(s) should lose their jobs for selling non-existent bandwidth?

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[Scannerman]

Dodgy analogy: If Tesco were selling soooo many packets of Corn Flakes that they were running out of space in their warehouses, then using the BT-School-of-Business route, they'd want to charge the customer the same for the Corn Flakes and *also* charge Kelogs for the privileged of Tesco selling them! Whereas obviously, they need to make enough money by selling products to invest in building the infrastructure to deliver it all. :D

If they cut down on my all you can use cornflakes supply, I may have to seriously consider using something else for fuel...

If we paid per megabyte for data it would be easy to provide infinite capacity, I'm not sure i want that. Generally I've been quite happy for my heavy internet consumption to be subsidised by the masses who just do a bit of web browsing and E-mails. The problem with things like iplayer is that all of a sudden everyone becomes a high bandwidth user. and the traditional business model doesn't work any more.

Delivering even 2 MB/s to everyone at once, 24/7 Is very very expensive. If we want it SOMEONE will have to pay.

I'm unconvinced that the iplayer model is the most efficient way to deliver video on demand.to millions of users.
 

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[mdwh2]

The only issue here is who's going to look like the bad guys for making the populace pay for upgrading BT's infrastructure.

No, on the one hand we have making BT's customers pay, in the other, we have all licence fee payers paying.

In the former case, yes BT may look bad to its customers if it increases the price, but that's business. Perhaps it shouldn't have sold what it can't provide? Moreover, if everyone else is in the same boat, there's no reason for them to look bad, since everyone else will be increasing their prices too (and if other ISPs aren't in the same boat, then why is it only a problem for BT?).

Alternatively, ISPs could simply drop the "unlimited" claims, and no one looks bad - you simply pay more if you want to use more.

But if the BBC is forced to pay, then they are unfairly made to look bad, when other website owners aren't, and licence fee payers will be annoyed as they'll be paying whether or not they're using Iplayer, and whether or not they're on BT.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[rapiddescent]

sorry for ruining the dodgy analogy, but in the UK FMCG market (fast moving consumer goods), brands do pay the supermarkets for premium shelf space - and they will pay varying amounts depending on whether the goods are at eyeline etc. the problem with brand push economics is that it is not transparent to the public and will end up in some sort of sleazy monopolistic situation where some providers are being given preferential treatment over others no matter what is being paid.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[Anonymous Coward]

"Who. Pays. For. It?

Who pays the wages of the guys digging the holes? Who pays for the fiber that goes in them, and the switches and routers?

That's all BT are arguing over:"

BT are going to pay for it. At least this is the argument that they've been using for years to charge such extortionately high prices to the customer. We pay them the high prices so that they can invest in the infrastructure.

If they're just using that money to line the shareholders pockets with profit (which looks highly likely given their track record) then they only have themselves to blame, and the sod off if they think we're going to pay them again for doing something they've already been paid for once, and not really done.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[pbhj]

BT's profit in 2008 was over £2 billion UKP ... now tell me the tale again about how they can't afford to improve their infrastructure?

Presumably the BT management and shareholders have been pocketing the profits whilst they still maintain[ed] a near monopoly on infrastructure level service rather than investing in future-proofing. Why should one care if you can run off with all the profits and leave the company unable to properly contend in the future? Capitalism sucks. This is why, IMO, basic infrastructure (roads, utilities, communications) are jobs for a properly regulated government.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[Keeper Of Keys]

And I will take all the little bits and I will jump on them, until... until they've had enough.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[smallfries]

You're right, I thought it was the network operator rather than the ISP. Although do any of really believe that they operate as entirely separate business units as they are supposed to?

Although it is BT Retail that is referred to in the article as trying to roll the Beeb for loose change, the other references to BT "negotiating" are less clear and could refer to Retail, the network, or even the company as a whole.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[Keeper Of Keys]

I don't mind paying a few quid extra month on my ISP bill if everyone ends up with better quality cable, but do we need it? The GGP seems to think we don't and that BT is just gouging. OTOH given that bandwidth demand is only going to go up in the coming years, we should probably just upgrade anyway. Don't really see what this has to do with the BBC, though.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

I learn something new everyday! :D

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[toriver]

So instead of charging their cuswtomers, they start charging non-customers? Isn't that like if some grocery product became so popular that a grocery chain had lots of expenses shipping it around to stores that they started charging the producers for being "too popular"?

It is perhaps rather BT that should pay BBC to provide the content that people become their customers to access, much like a grocery store pays farmers for their vegetables. BT needs to learn that they are simply an intermediate chain between a consumer and what they want to consume.

The alternative to net neutrality is "protection money" where content providers who do not pay for "preferred access" mysteriously becomes inaccessible to potential visitors.

Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger

[jabuzz]

It's worse than this. Under the regulatory structure as I understand it BT gets to charge customers in total an amount that is based on the value of their assets. They invest in more bandwidth and the value of their assets go up and they get to charge more. That is somewhat of a simplification but it's the general gist.

WTF?

[AccUser]

Let me get this straight... the BBC pays for their internet connection, and they will have to pay a tariff appropriate to the bandwidth that they use in providing these services, which covers iPlayer video being delivered from their servers. As a consumer, I pay for my internet connection, and pay a tariff appropriate to the bandwidth that I use in consuming services, included iPlayer video that I download and stream. So if both ends are paid for, what is the problem?

It sounds to me like BT has suddenly realised that they have oversold their services on the basis that not everyone uses their internet connection at the same time. This is a classic telecommunications model. Except that, unlike the telephone, our internet access is largely un-metered (flat-rate charge), and we can use it even when we are not physically present.

Re:WTF?

[Keeper Of Keys]

You're spot-on about the bandwidth stuff, but why do you still have a metered landline phone? Mine has been unmetered for about 5 years, first with Virgin, now BT.

Re:WTF?

[AccUser]

We actually pay a flat rate charge for most calls, but some are charged additionally. Mostly, people call us though. ;-)

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't iPlayer have a significant peer-to-peer side. That won't be using the Beeb's bandwidth.

Re:WTF?

[Turn-X Alphonse]

BT is NOT unmetered. I got kicked off BT for "excessive use" a couple of years back. They considered it wrong to be connected for long periods of time and using software to redial when they dropped it.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

as of a month ago, iPlayer no longer uses peer-to-peer

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

I second this. I got kicked off of BT Internet in the dial up days for being connected for too long.

Re:WTF?

[Keeper Of Keys]

Unmetered is not quite the same as unlimited. IIRC the terms of both phone contracts limit call durations to an hour, but (with BT's at least) you are allowed to call them back again immediately. It's designed for voice use - might even say this somewhere - not computer connections.

Solution

[sakdoctor]

BBC shouldn't give a penny to BT. They should cut them off.

From the perspective of BTs dumb mass audience, who chose BT because it bundled the prettiest ADSL modem, the word will quickly spread that BT is pants because your can't get "teh TVs".
Problem solved.

Re:Solution

[Keeper Of Keys]

Nice idea, but the BBC is a public service and would probably be violating parts of its charter by doing this.

Re:Solution

[sakdoctor]

Well then the other option is to do nothing.
If BT nerf the iplayer, inject phorm ads, or charge a surcharge to customers, the result will be -> "BT is pants"

Apart from carphone warehouse or AOL (if they are still even in the ADSL market), anything is a better choice than BT

Re:Solution

[Trahloc]

Why should the BBC cut them off? If BT doesn't want their users accessing the video content THEY should block it. Once their clients realize that they can't get what their paying for over BT it will quickly lose its status as 'largest'. Market forces are at work and BT is plugging its ears and going nya nya nya nya, let them go the way of the Dodo.

Re:Solution

[kieran]

Speaking as an ISP senior network engineer for over a decade:

Yes. BT can get stuffed, and any other provider who violates net neutrality will see me vote with my feet.

Re:Solution

[RichardJenkins]

Every ADSL subscriber in the country goes through BT some point. I suspect that BT wholesale is providing the BBCs net connection directly.

Re:Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Well they already block mobile broadband ISPs and don't do a client for minority OSes so why not block BT?

Re:Solution

[arkhan_jg]

As the iplayer is not currently covered by the licence fee (i.e. you don't need a TV licence just to watch the iplayer if you have no TV) they should be ok to not provide iplayer service to everyone, such as BT customers - after all, many people can't get a fast enough connection, or even any connection to watch what limited selection of content is available via iplayer at the moment.

But don't cut BT users off from the BBC; redirect them to a page saying 'due to BT not wishing to let you visit us without being paid extra, we've had to stop BT customers like yourself watching TV via the iplayer service for free. You may wish to find an ISP that includes iplayer access as part of their broadband packages.'

The cherry would be including links and switching instructions, but I suspect that would be seen as commercial advertising, which is against the charter.

Re:Solution

[Keeper Of Keys]

Well the iPlayer doesn't appear to work over 3G (wifi only on my phone) but I can't find a reliable news source for this - are the BBC blocking mobile ISPs, or are those ISPs blocking iPlayer? There seems no good reason for the BBC to do it AFAICS.

Re:Solution

[bleh-of-the-huns]

While it may be a public service, the internet side of things generally are not, its considered value added services. All the BBC needs to do is find another service provider for the data side of things. My guess is that if they did switch, and BT decided to filter BBC traffic, BT's customers that really want BBC, will jump to another provider very quickly.

Re:Solution

[Keeper Of Keys]

So all the BBC has to do is call their troll and refuse to pay. Is BT really going to risk their customers jumping ship by blocking iPlayer?

Re:Solution

[blackest_k]

ok my testing from ireland using three.ie and three.uk

three.ie modem no iplayer
three.co.uk iplayer streaming doesnt work, but downloading does.

however with a 7gb cap per month, I can't really use it.

most people with a contract with three can currently terminate early (with some determination) since they are ending like home. From the end of june Three users can enjoy the incredibly low roaming rate of £100 per Gb or £675 more per month than the current £25 for 7Gb that they currently offer on their sister network.

Do they really think anyones going to pay these rates? At least before they got the advantage of keeping it in the family so to speak. (actually as it happens 3 is probably the best choice in ireland as well) just a waste having to buy a 2nd modem.

Re:Solution

[pbhj]

Nice idea, but the BBC is a public service and would probably be violating parts of its charter by doing this.

The BBC is a quasi-governmental public service. Which is exactly why they shouldn't be bowing to pressure from commercial enterprises that think they'd like more profits and see the BBC as a cash cow. BBC need to tell BT they can take their peering agreement and shove it; they could also give them a lesson in ethical business - like charge the customers for the service you give them and then use that money to ensure your business stays viable, rather than removing it all as profit.

Competition

[jonbryce]

When people sign up for broadband, one of the main things they want it for in this country is iPlayer. If iPlayer doesn't work well on BT Internet, they will go to another ISP where it does work. That will be a selling point for their competitors. For that reason, BBC can tell them to get lost.

Re:Competition

[Rogerborg]

Remind me, which other UK ISPs don't use BT's backbone?

The only real choice is which intartubes wire you get your bits from: the copper going to the local BT exchange, or the copper going to the local Virgin Cable hub.

Given that Virgin Cable provide iPlayer through their TV Watch Again service, if BT squeeze iPlayer too hard, then it'll be Virgin that benefits, and nobody else.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you forgotten the one year commitment on BT service?

An by the way in my area there is NO other ISP providing the service
because all the available "connections" belong to BT (Canary Wharf, London):
that is what I was said by other ISPs I've contacted.

Re:Competition

[rich_r]

BT Internet are a separate division to the organisation that owns the physical backbone. In theory, BT internet buy their wholesale access in exactly the same way as any other ADSL provider.
So if BT internet play silly buggers with iPlayer you can migrate and you will see a difference, provided that the problem lies with the isp and the amount of money they're prepared to spend on their backhaul and pipe. If the problem is that if the BT Wholesale network can't cope, then that's a different kettle of fish!

Re:Competition

[Snaller]

"Remind me, which other UK ISPs don't use BT's backbone? "

Remind us where it matters?

Its a numbers game, if people go to someone else they pay someone else - that that money may end up with BT is not really relevant.

Re:Competition

[TheRaven64]

As others have pointed out, this is BT Broadband, not BT Openreach, so your question isn't relevant. That said, Virgin Media doesn't use BT's network at all and they have coverage for about 60% of the UK population (figures from a couple of years ago, may be more now). An increasing amount of Internet access is via cellular networks; both T-Mobile and Three have products with 15GB monthly caps - enough for a few iPlayer programs - at quite attractive prices, and these are likely to go down more as the HSPA rollouts progress. Beyond that, there are LLU providers in most exchanges who don't use BT's lines for the last hop and may or may not use them for some backbone traffic.

Re:Competition

[Aceticon]

Actually BBC should go ahead and pay BT ...

... only it would work like this:
- If you access BBC via another ISP you get your iPlayer content, no problem
- If you access it via BT you are informed that to view iPlayer content you must pay the BT comission which is "demanded by BT, paid directly to BT and exclusive to BT" - you are then taken to a payment interface where you must provide your credit/debit card information. All money paid (minus charges from the credit card processor) goes directly to BT. BBC itself does not charge for the service (since it gets no money) and word will quickly spread that if you use BT then your have to pay BT for using iPlayer.

Give it a couple of years with this in place and BTs market share will be down to single digits.

Re:Competition

[jonbryce]

My ISP, Telefonica O2, uses BT's last mile connection between my house and the exchange, and then has its own equipment in the exchange and its own backbone. There are others that resell BT's service.

BT doesn't have any control over bandwidth etc of people like me who use Local Loop Unbundled services.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

When people sign up for broadband, one of the main things they want it for in this country is Free Porn

Who gives a rat's ass about the BBCs crappy iPlayer ?

Re:Competition

[pbhj]

"Remind me, which other UK ISPs don't use BT's backbone? "

Remind us where it matters?

Its a numbers game, if people go to someone else they pay someone else - that that money may end up with BT is not really relevant.

There's another internet backbone of cables buried in the UK? That must be from the other previous state controlled telecoms organisation??

Re:Competition

[jez9999]

When people sign up for broadband, one of the main things they want it for in this country is iPlayer.

I just thought I'd remind the audience at this point that this is an incredibly presumptuous statement. The internet was not invented with the iPlayer in mind, and it is very possible to use the internet for years in end whilst never touching the iPlayer.

So please, BBC fanbois; please stop assume that everyone loves and wants to use the BBC on their fucking internet connection.

Re:Competition

[sonicmerlin]

Why do you keep saying "BT are"??? BT is a single entity. an individual corporation. It's not a plural noun. Doesn't "BT internet buy their" sound remotely uncomfortable and ill-fitting to you???

Re:Competition

[rich_r]

BT is not a single entity. BT Internet is one, BT Wholesale another, BT Openreach is another again.
If, however, your concern is that I talk about the entities as if they were people (very much like Soylent Green. Om nom nom) then I will, politely, have to disagree with your attitude. The impolite disagreement is that you've obviously got far too much time to worry about trivialities and, really, ought to get over it.

Re:Competition

[sonicmerlin]

Impolite diagreement? Where are from, 18th century England? Proper grammar isn't a triviality.

Re:Competition

[rich_r]

I'd be interested if you could show me how it's incorrect to say 'BT buy their ' vs 'BT buys its '. Until you do, you're a crap grammar nazi. Impolite disagreement would be me finishing off the sentence by calling you a cunt, btw. That's how you can tell the difference.

Encyption

[Anonymous Coward]

When all the bits look the same, there is no way to discriminate between them.

Re:Encyption

[Anonymous Coward]

When all the bits look the same, there is no way to discriminate between them.

The IP's of the BBC aren't going to be changing on a daily basis - you can match on that.

That's the way BT is

[Aceticon]

Don't forget that BT is the incumbent telecoms operator in the UK - they were originally a state owned monopoly and got most of their infrastructure in place using taxpayers' money.

These are the same guys that were holding back broadband in the UK a couple of years (all the while broadband adoption in the rest of Europe was taking of like crazy) ago until laws were passed forcing them to allow other ISPs to use their lines. Even now, they will still make it extra hard to use ISPs other than themselves.

They currently censor their customers connection using the list from the Internet Watch Foundation (a state controlled quango) - the same guys that were blocking Wikipedia some months ago - and will voluntarily give contact data for an IP address to any "content owner" who asks for it.

These guys are not the good guys and they haven't been so for many years now.

Re:That's the way BT is

[Jellybob]

I feel I need to put some of that in perspective - BT aren't saints, but they're not as bad as you're making out. This is from experience working for a UK ISP (not BT, one of the other ones).

These are the same guys that were holding back broadband in the UK a couple of years (all the while broadband adoption in the rest of Europe was taking of like crazy) ago until laws were passed forcing them to allow other ISPs to use their lines. Even now, they will still make it extra hard to use ISPs other than themselves.

That was indeed the case, but is not nearly as bad now. BT Broadband (the ISP), and BT OpenReach (the infrastructure operator) are required by law to be separate entities, and can not give each other preferential treatment. In my experience that's also the case, with it being no more hassle to get a line setup regardless of who you're subscribing to.

They currently censor their customers connection using the list from the Internet Watch Foundation (a state controlled quango) - the same guys that were blocking Wikipedia some months ago

So does every other major ISP in the country. There's an agreement in place since the government essentially said "do this voluntarily, on your terms, or we'll make it a legal requirement". Believe me, the terms written up by a bunch of network engineers are far better - the original request included logging anyone who hit something on the list, which was thrown out early on due to the possibility of false positives.

and will voluntarily give contact data for an IP address to any "content owner" who asks for it.

I'll concede that. It's a terrible move to screw over your own customers like that.

These guys are not the good guys and they haven't been so for many years now.

Of course they aren't, they're a large company. Large companies are never the good guys.

Re:That's the way BT is

[Anonymous Coward]

There's an agreement in place since the government essentially said "do this voluntarily, on your terms, or we'll make it a legal requirement". Believe me, the terms written up by a bunch of network engineers are far better - the original request included logging anyone who hit something on the list, which was thrown out early on due to the possibility of false positives.

You, Sir, are a useful idiot, and you fail to understand even the basic principles of negotiation.

(1) Any negotiation must start with the skilled party requesting far more than he expects to get. The concessions merely amount to reducing the agreed terms to what that party was hoping for. In this case, "logging everyone who hits one site on the IWF list" was not going to happen anyway - but if you ask for it, your opponent will rejoice when that term is conceded, while the government can be content that what they were actually aiming for, which is an infrastructure for censorship, has been successfully implemented.

(2) "Do this voluntarily or we'll force you to do it" is logically equivalent to "we're forcing you to do it". EITHER you do it OR you do it.

(3) Network engineer terms, oh really? No "bunch of network engineers" would agree to reporting as 404 what is (generously) a 403 Forbidden. A "bunch of network engineers" getting the final say would not have the final detour of the list being through government, which can add sites at will and in secret.

The IWF has a singular purpose: ensuring that there is a framework for censorship on the Internet, to be used whenever necessary. Also, if it became necessary to do some official logging, it'd just be be a matter of saying "please forward us those logs periodically". Of course IWF hits are logged unofficially at least temporarily, because all hits to IWF list IP addresses go via caching servers, and you can assume that any server has logging on unless there's some mound of evidence to show otherwise.

Re:That's the way BT is

[Hurricane78]

So does every other major ISP in the country.

Which does in no way somehow make it ok.
It's like saying "We follow Hitler, because they are all doing it!". (Godwin can kiss my ass on his bogus rule. ^^)

Re:That's the way BT is

[vrai]

So does every other major ISP in the country.

Which does in no way somehow make it ok.

But it does make it understandable. The current Government has little to no regard for civil liberties but likes to project the illusion that they are a liberal party. Passing laws to censor the internet would damage this illusion, give MPs the chance to debate the rules and Lords a chance to delay/revise them. This is not an acceptable situation for the Government, especially after the problems with ID cards and ninety day detention; thus they opted to threaten the ISPs in to joining their voluntary schema. This avoids the oversight and glare of an actual law while having the appearance of free choice.

Obviously there was no choice; the alternative to IWF would have either bankrupted the ISPs (not good for those who own them) or forced a huge rise in prices (which would have been blamed on the those owning the ISPs). Any complaints made by the ISPs were dismissed using the dual shields of "fighting terrorism" and "protecting the children", which made it impossible to build any real support in the media for their cause. Given the choice between dropping a rock on your head and having someone else drop a boulder on you, there's only one way to go. The ISPs did the absolute minimum required to keep the Government off their back and stay in business. The only people to blame here are the current ruling party, those who make policy for them, those who fund them and those who vote for them.

Needs a translation

[L4t3r4lu5]

"We oversold and can't cope with the costs. Subsidise us."

Well, fuck you BT. You made your bed; Lie in it.

Re:Needs a translation

[MiKM]

Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals! Except the weasels.

Re:Needs a translation

[ThomsonsPier]

It's funny because it's true.

And because of that weasels bit at the end.

Re:Needs a translation

[pbhj]

"We oversold and can't cope with the costs. Subsidise us."

Well, fuck you BT. You made your bed; Lie in it.

I think a better response would be: you made a couple of _billion_ £UKP profit each of the last few years, you can afford it. When you're making a loss on selling backbone bandwidth (and your directors are getting paid less than 150K pa) then come and sob, til then we poor schmuck taxpayers of Britain will keep our hard earned money from your wealthy directors and shareholders at almost any cost.

But I'm guessing the MPs will step in a write BT a big check and reap the rewards in dividend payments and retirement jobs.

Jaded, moi?!

What do you expect?

[shin0r]

When you charge pennies for a service - the big UK ISPs have been on a race to zero for years now - you'll come unstuck when people actually want to use the service. Duh. Whatever happened to charging a fair price, and then delivering a fair service? It's not rocket science.

Re:What do you expect?

[Keeper Of Keys]

1. Sign up users who don't use their connection much
2. Price War
3 ???
4. Loss

Re:What do you expect?

[L4t3r4lu5]

Some companies do. You'll find them here

Discovering unlimited internet use

[vxvxvxvx]

If all these ISPs realized advertising unlimited internet use would sell people on the idea they could use unlimited internet use maybe they should have built their infrastructure to handle it, or not market it as such. If they have anyone to whine to, it's themselves and their own short sightedness.

Re:Discovering unlimited internet use

[Anonymous Coward]

But where is the fun/profit in that?!?

Having worked with...

[OneSmartFellow]

..BT (not for them, mind you, just with them on technical projects), all I can say is that if BT (and OpenReach) would spend more on their hardware and infrastructure and less on their asinine marketing and the outsourcing of their customer support (which is a hugely inefficient operation), and all the other stupid crap that they spend money on, this would be a none-issue.

Hey, BT, you still have a freaking monopoly, despite the creation of OpenReach. If you can't make money with a monopoly, you deserve to go under.

"Free ride"

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it frustrating when ISPs falsely accuse content providers of "getting a free ride". It's not free, it's far from free, the BBC pay huge bandwidth costs to deliver content.

BT should not be allowed to blame "the internet" for loss in profits because of a poor business model. Especially as BT Wholesale accounts for a savage percentage of the UK broadband market.

Stop whining.

The BBC should just ignore BT

[Ross D Anderson]

I mean, why even enter into discussions with them? It's not like they're obligated to. If BT decided to cut them off I'm certain there would be a massive backlash from their customers as it's certainly a very popular service.

Get with the times, BT

[Obama$$$RIAA$$$]

It's time for BT to die and make way for municipally owned fiber. Hell, it's been time for at least 5 years.

Wrong Approach

[lobiusmoop]

Here's an independent UK ISP ratings site. BT is third-from-bottom for a reason.
  All the top ISP's on the list implement download quotas instead of throttling and port blocking to manage traffic, it is the fairest solution to load management IMHO.

Re:Wrong Approach

[Some Bitch]

BT also have download quotas, they're just too stupid to set them appropriately.

Re:Wrong Approach

[Bert64]

Many of the ISPs on the list resell BT's service... BT charges ridiculous amounts for the backhaul from the local exchange to the ISP... Actual Internet transit is much cheaper (from the ISP upwards) and peering with other UK based organisations is very cheap or free... For example, the BBC will peer with you for free because it saves transit costs for both of you.

Re:Wrong Approach

[owlnation]

I have to say I'm astonished that BT is third from the bottom. I would have expected it to be bottom. I had to help a friend recently, who had made the mistake of signing up to BT, with some bandwidth problems (other than the standard throttling from 5-midnight).

BT operates a slave plantation in India for customer support. They are the singular worst customer support I have ever encountered. They tell you absolutely anything you want to hear, lying in the process. A engineer needed to come and check the line. However it took 3 weeks of shouting at customer support to actually get someone to turn up. Every day we were promised the engineer would come the next day, they never ever showed. In the end had to make an official complaint by snailmail to get someone to turn up.

And let's not forget Phorm.

BT would be much better concentrating on fixing their massive problems with their service than talking about iPlayer. The BBC should tell BT to go fuck themselves.

Re:Wrong Approach

[tinkerghost]

Last time I tried to work with Verizon's tech support for someone, they had me reset the DSL modem - and hung up on me without providing the default UN/PW or the settings. I had to call back twice & ended up going through 4 drones & 2 supervisors before finding someone who understood that you had to MANUALLY ENTER the data if you don't have Windows - and they didn't know how to do the manual configuration.

Don't use BT broadband

[hattig]

People might diss Virgin Media, but at least they host iPlayer and other TV on demand services like 4od, and provide them through their cable box (however naff the box is!).

BT's crapness in this regard suggests to me that their 21CN (21st century network) is just a pile of shit that has costed billions like everything else they do.

The whole point of iPlayer, etc, is that people will be using it when they have free time (i.e., in the evening) to catch up on TV they have missed. If it is unusable at this time due to throttling, then what's the point? It's not like we're talking about 8mbit streams either...

* disclaimer - I used to work for BT

Re:Don't use BT broadband

[IBBoard]

I'd probably "diss" them as well for considering spying on you with Phorm.

I'm surprised that BT even has a 21st Century Network. Given what South Korea and Japan had, I thought we were still stuck on a 20th Century Network here in the UK.

Not that it makes much difference to me - I'm on Sky's free 2Mbps and 2GB/mo broadband and haven't overused it in any given month enough to be told to stop. 99% of TV is crap as it is, why bother wasting time streaming it or downloading it?

Re:Don't use BT broadband

[TheRaven64]

I'd probably "diss" them as well for considering spying on you with Phorm.

Did you even read that link? They are evaluating Phorm, but have not implemented it. They reserve the right to implement it in the future, but if they do then it will be optional. Not ideal, but it could be worse.

Re:Don't use BT broadband

[IBBoard]

Did you even read that comment? I did read the link, hence my wording. I'll try it again with emphasis in case it wasn't clear:

I'd probably "diss" them as well for considering spying on you with Phorm.

The fact that they were even considering it was enough to make one of my co-workers move to another ISP, and I can't say I blame him.

AFAIK BT are doing the same thing, so it isn't surprising that they want people to pay more for actually using their bandwidth - it would mean they'd get paid to provide the bandwidth to the BBC servers, paid by the customer for their account and paid by Phorm to spy on their customers.

Consumer should pay

[slim]

It seems obvious to me that any ISP (including BT) should pass these bandwidth costs on to the consumer.

One of several things will happen:

• Consumers decide streaming video isn't that important to them after all, and buy a cheaper service. The market has spoken.
• Consumers grumble a bit, but end up paying for what they're using
• Competitors step in with a cheaper way of providing the bandwidth consumers want

Re:Consumer should pay

[IBBoard]

You missed an option:

  * People will grumble because all prices (including the lowest packages) go up, the UK Government will decide that it doesn't meet their "everyone must have broadband" requirement and legislate to make BT upgrade the infrastructure to something closer to what Japan has

Or is that overly optimistic for any government we might get in the UK (Labour or Conservatives)? :D

Re:Consumer should pay

[Xest]

The issue in the UK is that they do pass it on to consumers already but that that extra cash that should be for infrastructure is just pocketed as extra profit instead by either the ISP or BT.

British users are already not as heavy bandwidth users as in other countries that pay less for a faster connection with more bandwidth. As BT have a monopoly they can get away with this as there is no true nationwide competition threat to cause them any harm when they do do this.

BT paid for an infrastructure upgrade already called 21cn but they refused to roll out access to it initially until OFCOM change competition rules to help them maintain their monopoly and further increase profits. As such they clearly have the money in their profits to pay for these upgrades, they just have no motivation to do them, and when they do, they only do so with the promise that they can hold onto their monopoly longer or extort money from ISPs by refusing to allow them access if they don't pay up meaning as soon as one ISP crumbles they all have to or lose out to the one that did crumble.

Heck

[Anonymous Coward]

I would even pay money if the BBC would allow me legally to access their content. Outside of britain there is no way you can get access legally.
The same goes for hulu.com btw, which is only legally acessible from within the USA!

Got to love BT

[ilikejam]

Maybe they can make up the shortfall with the proceeds from Phorm.

BT should paying the BBC

[OdinOdin_]

BT is the principal landline telecommunications supplier in the UK. Most of their income is generated from being a wholesale infrastructure supplier, so I don't understand why there is a "bandwidth delivery problem". Since BT must have the cheapest cost of getting bandwidth from one location in the UK to their customer base. BT can well afford to put multiple 10GbE into LINX and/or BBC directly and connect 1GbE into every local exchange/Point-of-Presence.

So the question has to be asked, what specific thing is it that stops these things from taking place ? Could is be that upgrading equipment at both ends of a fiber optic medium might increase bandwidth by 10 fold but decrease the comodity value of that same bandwidth by 8 fold. Which also has the effect of decreasing the comodity value of all other bandwidth products a telco has for sale. Net result is less profit.

BT inherited their network from the government when it was the "GPO", maybe it is time for the GPO to come back so that the monopoly position BT has is rebalanced against the technological improvements of the past 10 years that a state owned entity could push forward. Some people in the UK don't like privatisation and other people don't like nationalisation, but I say we should have both (at least 2 companies) and let the customer spend their money with the company who best serves their interests.

It is my understanding that when you are a content supplier, people pay you to get connected to you, since you have the content that your "consumers" are paying you to get to. Within reasons the cost of bandwidth is free to the BBC (over and above some ~£million costs to setup, own and manage). Internet bandwidth at neutral exchanges must look pretty cheap compared to satellite video bandwidth needed for a world leading TV, radio, news and media organisation. The money for connectivity flows in that direction, consumer to producer.

Re:BT should paying the BBC

[ilikejam]

As far as I'm aware, it's BT OpenReach that owns all the infrastructure. BT domestic have to buy their bandwidth from them.

Re:BT should paying the BBC

[commandlinegamer]

The splitting off of the postal service from telecommunications saw one side decline into a loss-making enterprise (post) and the other become a cash cow (telecoms). It's a bit ironic that this year the Royal Mail announced its first profit in years whilst BT posted losses.

Re:BT should paying the BBC

[Anonymous Coward]

"Internet bandwidth at neutral exchanges must look pretty cheap compared to satellite video bandwidth needed for a world leading TV, radio, news and media organisation."

To a point. The difference is unicast vrs broadcast.
With somewhere like SKY you broadcast once and everyone recieves, with iPlayer the bbc has to handle EVERY connection.

True when you're at a major peering point like LINX if you have a 10G port (and you use it) it's costing you a few pennies a month per Mbit. If you have Private peering it's "free", you just have the upfront hardware costs.

Re:BT should paying the BBC

[OdinOdin_]

Could it be that Royal Mail now has comparable competition ? But BT OpenReach / WholeSale is still a monopoly that even cable operators find difficult to match. If find Cable operators are only interested in plucking the low hanging fruit.

I do understand the point raised that the business and consumer DSL broadband companies (BT Openworld) are a separate profit centre / company to other parts of BT.

My thoughts are that the landline wholesale infrastructure needs to have mandatory contractual stipulations forced upon it coming from an accountable elected committee. The stipulations don't need to be strict but they do need to force change to ensure progress continues to be made. It is unclear to me exactly what new "progress" has been made in the past 2 years. Things like addressing the last 15% of rural areas lacking any broadband connectivity from any supplier (these users are still on dialup!), surely a mix of GSM/WiMax/fiber optic solution is possible to cover the last 20 miles.

Market forces in natural monopolies..?

[jopsen]

Well, I guess that depends on whether or not customers can find another ISP...

Personally I'd like to see regulation from EU... :)

Re:Market forces in natural monopolies..?

[Tony Hoyle]

What? There are only, like 100 of the damned things.

This isn't like the US where the ISPs have carved out local monopolies.

Re:Market forces in natural monopolies..?

[pbhj]

What? There are only, like 100 of the damned things.

This isn't like the US where the ISPs have carved out local monopolies.

BT operates at several different levels. They sell bandwidth to the 100 odd ISPs that operate in your exchanges because they control the actual physical infrastructure. If BT can get away with it (probably) then they can increase the charge to the ISPs for their customers accessing iPlayer. Whereas what they should be doing is charging a cost for bandwidth regardless of its use.

Re:Market forces in natural monopolies..?

[Trahloc]

I know you guys are different than over here but I *strongly* doubt the UK only have one Tier 1 carrier. No matter how big BT is, there is redundancy, and any single homed ISP should go belly up if BT goes into bankruptcy.

Re:Market forces in natural monopolies..?

[sonicmerlin]

Since BT was originally a giant nation-wide monopoly that operated Tier 1, then went private... UK does in fact have only one Tier 1 carrier. That's why their broadband is so slow.

Re:Market forces in natural monopolies..?

[pbhj]

BT was the state run telecoms supplier until it was privatised. There are some parallel systems but, on the whole, the established network is still monopolised. BT were forced however to open the exchanges for other peoples equipment and to only sell the backbone data carriage to their own ISP at the market price (no preferential treatment).

Cogent, NTL (now Virgin I think), C&W, THUS and some others operate in this space but other than BT I think they generally have a small coverage [the former] NTL or concentrate on data-centre interconnection.

BT here is like the post office (USA still have a national post, no?) - there are many other suppliers of postal services but only the Royal Mail covers the country and is still leveraging it's monopoly position from pre-denationalisation.

BT throttles entire Internet worldwide

[David Gerard]

BT, Britain's biggest broadband supplier, has thoughtfully averted complete congestion of the Internet by throttling all use of the Internet on its cheapest broadband package, blaming the BBC iPlayer, everyone else on the Internet and magical pixies.

Customers on the I Can't Believe It's Eight Megabits package have all Internet data flow cut off entirely under its "fair use" clause during "peak periods," defined as being between the hours of 12:00 midnight and 11:59pm. "However," said a customer service telephone voice menu, "the connection itself runs at the full eight megabits the entire time. That we guarantee absolutely."

BT has recently sold the technology to China, where it was put into operation today, blocking Twitter, Blogger, Microsoft Bob Hope and the live webcam of the coffee pot at Cambridge University. "We will not put up with the drop in productivity social networking sites cause," said a spokesrivercrab. "After the terrible onslaught of blue screens at the Olympics, we will stop at nothing to protect patriotic citizens from the influence of Microsoft. And they love us for it. Just find one who doesn't!"

"Besides," said the BT phone menu, "we're still better than Virgin. A high bar to aim for, I know. But you get such better fail whales over a phone line than a cable."

Re:BT throttles entire Internet worldwide

[freedom_india]

Don't you Britishers' have a law against throttling or capping?
I thought Internet Access was a Fundamental Right under EU laws.
Doesn't it apply to Britain too?
Although the main reason Britain entered the ECC is to set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch., thus, in the immemorial words of Sir Humphrey: "Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last five hundred years - to create a disunited Europe."

BT's Heavy User package

[Some Bitch]

BT have a Heavy User package (£20.54pcm) that contains the following as part of it's description...

Downloading 3,333 music files, 26 videos or streaming 40 hours of iPlayer every month

If you can't afford to provide it then don't advertise it, fuckwits. Manage your customer's expectations properly and stop making promises you can't keep, it's a much more sustainable business model.

Re:BT's Heavy User package

[Skuldo]

That's a heavy user?! It must be, what, 20GB of bandwidth!

I use around 100gb a month without doing anything major. Freedom2surf is a good ISP (or maybe just my legacy connection from when it was an independent ISP, I gather that new subscribers use rebranded Tiscali service..).

BBC to Charge BT for Content delivered.

[dwat001]

In other new the BBC has announce it will start charging BT for the content that BT customers download.

OK I just made that up. But what the BBC is doing with the iPlayer is driving up demand for consumer broadband ... this is good for ISPs not bad. Every time the bbc mentions now available on the iPlayer (lots) any punter with out broadband has another incentive to give ISPs more money.

BT is already getting paid to deliver zeros and ones to its customers by its customers, why should they get paid twice?
BBC is already getting charged to push their zeros and ones to the internet, why should they pay twice.

If BT finds this situation unpleasant they could just block the iPlayer, I think this would be a very good way to see how many customers the BBC has given them, as BT watches them leave.

Of course

[Snaller]

They could just start selling only what they can provide, instead of selling what they haven't got.

Pay for your own mistakes!

[Grey Loki]

Wait, hold on - BT were short-sighted enough to bypass laying down a high-bandwidth system through the UK while there was time, and now people are raping their servers because of their own short-sightedness, they want someone ELSE to pay for the mistake?

Mirror

[apcyberax]

To me the Answer to this is simple. ISP are moaning becuase it eats bandwidth on thhere pipe to other networks. if people like BT and Virgin mirrored the bbc iplayer servers locally then they can serve there shows with no impact. this is like how ISP host there own News group servers. ISP can then offer 100% of there speeds to people using the server but not impact the backbone. This would also help BBC load balence there servers. I would love to hear what others think about this

It's because Iplayer is stupid

[Antique Geekmeister]

Iplayer actually could have helped: by actually using Bittorrent instead of their own invented Bittorrent-like protocol, and spreading the load, it could have cut the piracy bandwidth load of people downloading BBC television shows. But their business choices completely ruined the possibility.

1: They chose Windows Media Player to provide their desired DRM, which meant they had to go and stream it anyway for Linux and Mac users.
2: Their interface sucks so badly no one in the UK wants to use it. (At least not the sys-admin there I've discussed it with.) No one cares whether the episode of a child's program you want to see showed at which timeslot, you shouldn't have to scroll through all the times to pick the 6:30 AM or the 10:25 AM or the 2:30 re-run, just name the show and let people grab it.
3: Even when turned off, Iplayer quietly sucks your bandwidth for its Bittorrent like protocol without telling you. So it interferes with your other usage, and companies have to tell their own staff not to run it on their laptops or VPN connected machines, etc.

Re:It's because Iplayer is stupid

[L4t3r4lu5]

I only use the online iPlayer web applet. I don't need to download their content to my PC to view later... I'm at my PC now and can watch it now.

If it serupticiously steals (deprive of an asset or service without owners consent) my bandwidth to fund their network, they'll be getting an invoice from me.

Re:It's because Iplayer is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't work like that in terms of "spreading the load"

In the UK p2p delivery is mostly pointless since most if not all ADSL traffic goes through legacy ATM networks and is routed through London. Hence if you ping someone nearby you're routed through London anyway negating the benefits of "local" p2p delivery.

Re:It's because Iplayer is stupid

[TheRaven64]

Absolute nonsense. Bittorrent uses more total bandwidth than HTTP (by a large margin). Bittorrent is not topology-aware, so it uses the network inefficiently. HTTP with edge-caching (what iPlayer uses) uses an order of magnitude or more less total network bandwidth than Bittorrent.

Re:It's because Iplayer is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

they arent using WMP anymore - they're using Adobe Air to deliver the downloadable streams.
its also not p2p anymore

Re:It's because Iplayer is stupid

[Antique Geekmeister]

Right: that's the one they had to create because they violated their charter by being Windows only for the original, Bittorrent-like design, the one that sucked so badly.

However, I'm sure the "we will suck your bandwidth like a very, very large tick on your carotid" clause is way, way down about paragraph 37 of the end user agreement for the "download" version of Iplayer.

Re:It's because Iplayer is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

They did change it.

But sod that, lets moan about v.1 because as we know, the first release is always perfect...

Re:It's because Iplayer is stupid

[L4t3r4lu5]

It's actually in Section 2 of Akamai's Privacy Statement

"Akamai speeds the delivery of content and applications for customers through using automatic, intermediate, and temporary information storage to make the onward transmission of that information to other recipients more efficient."

It also seems that the BBC cover themselves with iPlayer Terms and Conditions Section 12(2):

[You agree] that you are responsible for paying all expenses that you may incur in connection with your access to and use of BBC iPlayer including your internet service provider charges and any excess charges to that provider if you have a cap on downloads and/or uploads and all costs of the equipment and software you need to connect to and use BBC iPlayer. BBC is not responsible if your equipment or software is not compatible with BBC iPlayer[.]

They would see this as part of the service, so I guess unless it's tested in court we'll just have to live with it.

Martyr, anyone?

Re:It's because Iplayer is stupid

[jdowland]

There's a good article in Wired UK ish 1 (online at http://www.wired.co.uk/wired-magazine/archive/2009/04/features/the-man-who-saved-the-bbc.aspx) which covers some of the internal culture change that happened around when the iPlayer got revamped and lost its windows-only roots.

The invasion of the paid-for content...

[Archtech]

Unfortunately we have different communication technologies overlapping here, each with its traditional pricing structure. They don't fit.

The Internet has always been free to the end-user, thanks to the generosity (and perhaps intelligent self-interest) of parties like the US federal government, owners of the many servers that forward packets to us all, and - let's not forget - even telcos. Where I live, in southern England, I can buy ISP service for about $20/month upwards. That gets me continuous Internet access using ADSL, over a telephone wire designed for speech only, with a maximum bandwidth of about 2Mbps (because I live 3 miles from the exchange). On a good day I might get 2.8 Mbps, on a bad day (and perhaps due to contention) down around 1.5 or even less.

Now this is perfectly adequate for almost everything I want to do. I use email (and have since 1980); download with ftp; browse the Web; and other such traditional activities. The only time I bump my head on the ceiling is when I have to download a really big file, or (occasionally) watch some streaming video that I can't download in its entirety first.

Where it breaks down completely, of course, is if I want to download (or worse stream) movies, watch live sporting events in full glorious technicolour on a large screen without graininess or intermittent motion; or watch TV. That's because the Internet was never intended for those activities, most of which are better adapted to the plain ol' steam TV set (complemented by a video player, DVD player, etc.) Why on earth would thousands (potentially millions) of individuals download high-bandwidth material over separate, contending, low-bandwidth links, when much of that same material is freely broadcast through the air they breathe? It doesn't make very good engineering sense. More to the point, it doesn't make good economic or business sense. Movies, TV, sport, music and other live entertainment have traditionally been things you had to pay for - whether by buying a ticket, subscribing, or just watching tedious commercials.

AFAIAC, the really important aspect of this whole thing is that the Internet itself should remain free - as in speech and as in beer (apart from content-neutral ISP fees). Unfortunately, there are pople like this http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=19552&tag=nl.e539 who reckon otherwise. We have got to make sure they don't get their way.

Re:The invasion of the paid-for content...

[Ken D]

Why on earth would thousands (potentially millions) of individuals download high-bandwidth material over separate, contending, low-bandwidth links, when much of that same material is freely broadcast through the air they breathe? It doesn't make very good engineering sense. More to the point, it doesn't make good economic or business sense.

Right, and this whole switch to DTV was a lark. Broadcasting through the air makes no sense at all. Not when there's no longer 3 channels with 30% of TV watchers watching each. Or didn't you notice that the switch to DTV involved moving broadcasts to a crappy piece of spectrum? The old spectrum was too valuable to waste on TV.

Re:The invasion of the paid-for content...

[arkhan_jg]

Why on earth would thousands (potentially millions) of individuals download high-bandwidth material over separate, contending, low-bandwidth links, when much of that same material is freely broadcast through the air they breathe?

Convenience. Being able to watch what you want, when you want instead of what some channel manager has decided should be broadcast in that timeslot. It's the difference between ordinary radio and spotify, and not having to wait a year (or possibly forever) for it to hit DVD for an outrageous price is just gravy.

Video-on-demand for a low price is incredibly popular whether it's from the BBC or the piratebay, even though the technology was never designed for it, and it's a pretty creaky fit. Yet even with the limitations, people still want it really badly. And it's just a driver of what's to come. High capacity links have all sorts of uses, many of them productive - video just happens to be the vox populi one.

TV, radio and phones all got very expensive custom networks built just for them at large public subsidy. Other countries like korea and france are doing the same for broadband - it's overdue time that control and upgrades of one of our key pieces of national infrastructure shouldn't be left in the hands of a selfish operator. Yes, BT openreach is nominally a different company than BT-the-consumer-ISP, but we should have a national fibre-optic to the kerb system in place by now, instead of the half-assed ADSL2+ 21CN upgrade to the copper phone line system they're struggling with right now and the LLU operators rolled out years ago. As long as management concerned only with the bottom line are in control of it, we'll be permanently stuck in the tech stone age in this country, and have to pay through the nose for it to boot.

Re:The invasion of the paid-for content...

[pbhj]

I use email (and have since 1980);

Was that on ARPANET? Was it even called email then? I notice that the IETF RC822 from 1982 is called "Standard for ARPA Internet Text Messages", though it does mention "electronic mail".

Re:The invasion of the paid-for content...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Why on earth would thousands (potentially millions) of individuals download high-bandwidth material over separate, contending, low-bandwidth links, when much of that same material is freely broadcast through the air they breathe?"

1 device to do everything. Why should I pay for a TV AND a PC?

Also Legally you don't need a TV Licence to watch Iplayer, 4OD Catchup etc, but you do to watch the streaming BBC news. The reason is services like iplayer aren't real time or near real time, they are recorded and replayed.
The streaming BBC news (news.bbc.co.uk) is however real time so you need a TV Licence (note on the news page it says you need a TV Licence when you're streaming where the pages which aren't don't mention the TV Licence also the Iplayer pages the TV Licence isn't mentioned)

The BBC should tell BT to piss off

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure BT would loose plenty of customers if BT starts blocking iPlayer.
Customers are already paying for their bandwidth. This is just a clear case of BT wanting to be paid twice.
Greedy scum.

Another typical UK cockup!

[Anonymous Coward]

While I appreciate at the end of the day it's "who wants to look like the bad guy" when the bills come in for payment, BT or BBC ( via the license fee), just another example of a greedy telco cutting corners and costs and who didn't keep pace with the demands of the internet. They set up and sold a service, thinking not many people will be interested other than a bit of browsing and some emails, just like the old dial-up days. Things took off and now they are fighting to stay in control. You should have metered it from the outset, like you do with mobile and landline calls!

Just like the UK's transport system, we got ours set up first, ran it into the ground without maintaining it and sit here crying now it's all f**ked and broken, looking for someone else to blame for the mess!

Re:fp

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, that's the most ON TOPIC troll ever. Mod him troll, but not Offtopic.

Simple solution

[Roger W Moore]

This is just BT believing that because they used to be the national phone service they have a right to dominate any communications market and charge whatever they like.

There is a simple solution to this: the BBC should just ignore them. If they decide to limit or block access to iPlayer then I'm sure their competition will make mincemeat of them given its popularity. All they need to do is advertise that they have iPlayer access and let the market decide - this is one time that leaving things to the market might actually work.

Re:Simple solution

[guruevi]

What they have to advertise is not 'we have iPlayer' but 'we don't have restrictions'. If you start advertising 'we have iPlayer', what will be next; 'we have Google', 'we have Wikipedia? After a while you just start getting a channel lineup much like current cable/satellite which the ISP's would love; you just cache the daily version of your channels or propose to have certain media hosted in your own data centers and they won't have to pay for the upkeep of pipes that create the Internet anymore.

For most consumers this won't make a lot of difference, they will pay the same, they will be persuaded to believe that this is actually a 'good thing' -- filtered for the children and (initially) cheaper -- and you'll end up with a bunch of local networks connected to a BBS where the ISP has a monopoly over content.

Re:Simple solution

[didroe84]

Where you went wrong there was assuming they have any competition. The only viable alternative is Virgin cable and that's only available in a small number of places. I really wish our government hadn't privatised the infrastructure part of BT.

Cut-throat?

[Anonymous Coward]

in a cut-throat broadband market, something is going to have to give â" and net neutrality may have to be chucked overboard.

That's not how a cut-throat market works. In a cut-throat market, the thing that has to give is the company, not the customer. Whose throat is getting cut here, anyway.

its about Net Neutrality, nothing else

[Anonymous Coward]

why not charger the customer more for broadband access or not offer cheap 'unlimited' rates.

What this actually! is about is Net Neutrality and they use this as a lever. And our polititians will be dump enought to fall for it.

sad sad sad

BT: stop whinging

[tonylemesmer]

Why don't BT just charge their customers to cover the costs and stop whinging about it?

BT is too close to OFCOM

[Anonymous Coward]

I despise BT. I am forced to have a BT phone which I rarely use just in order to be able to get an ADSL connection with another, better, ISP.

For that privilege I have been paying out about £160 a year on top of the ADSL fees from the ISP. BT has an iron grip on the UK's Telecom infrastructure decades after the government monopoly was privatised and OFCOM was set up to oversee the introduction of an open market. They have done little that was worth doing. The sooner BT is broken up, the better.

Complaints to OFCOM get excuses and justification in response, while the EU monopolies comission have criticised the UK for having a 'watchdog' which is not doing its job, and too close to the telecoms industry.

Charge by the bit and by performance

[davidwr]

Charge by the bit.

Charge more for more expensive qualities of service, e.g. "slow bulk - delays up to 1 hour allowed" is less than "bulk - delays up to 1 minute allowed" is less than "sub-second response required" is less than various degrees of "real time/interactive traffic" like voice, video, and real-time gaming.

Within each of these latency QOS tiers, "no packets dropped" would be more expensive than "99.9% of packets go through" would be more expensive than "95% of packets go through." The command-and-control and action-scenes of games may require no packets be dropped. The "mere background" for games may be able to tolerate dropped packets. Likewise, audio and video should be tolerant of dropped packets.

Of course, don't pull a Time-Warner - be reasonable about pricing: Assuming usage patterns don't change, your overall revenue shouldn't change when you shift from flat-rate to tiered pricing. If it does it makes you look bad. Of course, usage patterns will change and your gross and net revenues may go up or down.

Re:Charge by the bit and by performance

[cdrguru]

Unfortunately, IP TV doesn't care how it is charged for. Everyone streaming their own private streams takes a huge amount of bandwidth. Far, far more than broadcasting does.

I think the IP TV idea is pretty much doomed because of the bandwidth requirements. It works fine when a couple of homes on a 1000 home network node are doing it. It stops working so nicely when 100 of them are. It brings the node down when 500 try it.

Re:Charge by the bit and by performance

[sonicmerlin]

"Bits" are not a finite resource. The use of them doesn't cost the ISP any more money than a lack of use of them. The main costs of a network are the initial deployment of infrastructure. From there all costs are very low maintenance-based ones. Charging by bit is completely illogical.

What free ride?

[Stan92057]

Im sorry but doesnt the BBC pay for its bandwith? Its being hosted by someone and not for free thats for sure. If theses ISPs want to cry about bandwith,then get out of the ISP business or comeup with a better competing product.

I'm going to hell for saying this.

[eiMichael]

Ya know what? Maybe, just maybe, streaming real-time video of for-profit television programs just isn't something that our current incarnation of an Internet should be doing.

You want to watch on the computer? Just download the programs you want to watch while at work at a rate that doesn't over-burden our infrastructure, then when you come home it's there. I guess after all these problems that are apparently happening b/c we're streaming video, transferring TERRABYTES of just temporary data, maybe we should evaluate if this is something worth doing?

Re:I'm going to hell for saying this.

[augustw]

Because BBC television programs aren't "for-profit". They carry no sponsorship, or advertising.
They are funded from the mandatory license fees. Which those outside the UK do not pay, which is why those on non-UK IP addresses can't access BBC iPlayer content.

Re:I'm going to hell for saying this.

[sonicmerlin]

It is worth doing. It is definitely worth doing. Also BT has been able to profit heartily off of UK users subscriptions, so it's not like they're not able to invest in upgrading their infrastructure.

Have to do it

[CopaceticOpus]

I think the traditional car analogy applies well here. Imagine Amoco complaining to auto makers that their cars are using too much gasoline and driving up gas prices, and therefore they should give Amoco money to subsidize the cost of gas.

Anyone can see that is ridiculous, and the idea of charging the BBC for the costs of running an ISP is just as absurd.

Here's how I'd figure out who is right

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd look at iplayer's protocol and see if it's cacheable. If it's cacheable, then this is the ISPs' fault (users: switch to another ISP who knows how to apt-get install squid). If it's not cacheable, then it's the BBC's fault (users: stop using iPlayer and pirate your content instead).

It's really that simple.

If you want revenue LET ME PAY

[SuperKendall]

I think it's absurd that they are shaking down people for money for allowing access to content, when they are not allowing people from other countries to access the content by any means - even paid means.

I thought these guys were business people. I have money, let me pay for something I want!

Re:If you want revenue LET ME PAY

[augustw]

I think you've got things confused: it's the BBC that restricts access to iPlayer content, not the ISPs. And it's the ISPs who want the revenue, from the BBC. And the BBC don't actually sell anything, anyway; it's all given away, funded from the licence fee.

Memo to ISPs in general:

[kheldan]

Be a Content Provider or be a Bandwidth Provider. You SHOULD NOT be both. Conflict of interest!

So what happens this Autum then?

[Amphetam1ne]

So what happens in Autum when Sky Player comes to Xbox Live and the Xbox Live / Zune HD movie service starts offering 1080p streaming movies? Last time I checked a 1080p movie was a minimum of 9GB.... BT seem to think that 30GB/month is "normal" usage, while MS want to sell you a movie which uses 1/3 of that bandwidth in under 2 hours (most likely within the 6pm-12am "peak" period). There is a massive wake up call on its way.

Re:So what happens this Autum then?

[cdrguru]

The question is a wakeup call for whom?

If BT doesn't have the infrastructure to provide the kind of service others want to make use of, it might be kinda tough. One of the huge problems with this sort of thing is that for the first few people it works fine. Then, if a huge bandwidth consumer is popular, it becomes unusable quickly because the end-to-end pathway doesn't exist at a high enough bandwidth level.

Home Internet connections today exist with relatively high bandwidths because all of this bandwidth is shared among hundreds of homes. You want 20MB/sec connections? Fine - you get it as long as the aggregate bandwidth being used on your node doesn't swamp the link to the head end. Once that link is swamped, your service drops. Today, we have the capability for hundreds of homes to each consume 10MB/sec or more. The result of this would seem to be that the link to the head end from the neighborhood node needs to accomodate the number of homes served times 10MB/sec. Ha, as if that sort of bandwidth exists today.

Will Internet service providers move away from a neighborhood node to individual fiber optic links to each and every home? Doubtful. Very doubtful because of the cost of doing so - it might take them 10 or 20 years to recoup that expenditure, maybe more. Most neighborhood nodes were wired with privately run fiber links, so they already spent plenty on setting up the infrastructure this way.

I suspect the idea of dedicated bandwidth to each home is going to go by the wayside pretty soon. When your neighbors start consuming more and more of the node bandwidth, the end result will not be that the cable and DSL links will be built up - there are finite limits to how far the node concept can go. Without independent links to every home the bandwidth just isn't going to be available for everyone on a 1000 home neighborhood node to be watching their own privately streamed HD TV show.

Wireless? Not an answer. More shared bandwidth, with even less to go around.

How about optical links? You put up a tower somewhere and point a laser at each house you want to serve. Something in the 100W range should be good enough to punch through fog and rain. So for a 1000 homes you would only need 100KW of laser power radiating out. Solar power would be good for this, I guess. Might suck to be a bird in that area but it wouldn't require digging everything up.

or just use get_iplayer

[Anonymous Coward]

Just use get_iplayer - http://linuxcentre.net/getiplayer/. Cron it, script it, whatever. Then watch at your leisure.

What "has to give" is BT's deceptive marketing

[Digital_Quartz]

BT is selling "unlimited" Internet service to its customers. If BT can't deliver the service it has promised to provide, then BT has no one to blame but itself.

A solution

[davidwr]

Unfortunately, IP TV doesn't care how it is charged for. Everyone streaming their own private streams takes a huge amount of bandwidth. Far, far more than broadcasting does.

I think the IP TV idea is pretty much doomed because of the bandwidth requirements. It works fine when a couple of homes on a 1000 home network node are doing it. It stops working so nicely when 100 of them are. It brings the node down when 500 try it.

One solution is some flavor of Mbone.

Even as-is, IPTV shouldn't be any more bandwidth than the same number of people sucking down a large linux distro. The only difference should be that instead of delays being introduced at choke points, packets are dropped.

In any case, if you charge more for "real-time" and "no loss" qualities of service, independent of the actual data, IPTV customers will get to choose between dropped packets or a lower-quality of video during peak periods or a higher bill. The point is though, they will get to choose.

Likewise, people downloading Linux distros should be able to choose between a delayed download or a higher bill during congested periods. TANSTAAFL.

no mention of youtube

[Anonymous Coward]

The bbc iplayer takes up bandwidth, so does youtube but no mention of asking youtube to pay extra.
Both ends already pay to transport the data, now we are expected to pay the carrier for a service because it's popular!
Total bandwidth used by google must be larger than iplayer, is it because google would tell them to piss off that no mention of extra charges. What else is different?
BT saved 10 billion waiting for a magic bullet which arrived in the form of adsl but left them 10 years behind schedule, they have pissed away the profit and expect us to pay the bill for a 3rd time. nationalise them under a bbc type charter :)

Bit transport costs in two ways

[davidwr]

"Bits" are not a finite resource. The use of them doesn't cost the ISP any more money than a lack of use of them. The main costs of a network are the initial deployment of infrastructure. From there all costs are very low maintenance-based ones. Charging by bit is completely illogical.

There are two very good reasons to charge by usage:

1) For bits which cross to other carriers, your ISP may have to pay an inter-network transport fee. This isn't the case for all inter-network traffic but it is for some.

2) Capacity planning is based on estimated future bandwidth needs, in particular, peak bandwidth needs. If you want capacity to exceed needs so all customers can get what they want when they want it, you need to pay for that capacity. Those customers who use today's capacity should "pay back" those investors and previous customers who paid for the pipes they are using now, so the ISP has money to spend on new, improved pipes.

Let's pretend an ISP is in a small town with 50,000 customers and it's run as a co-op. Let's say the total costs each month average $40 per customer including the costs to pay back the initial bonds and loans to build the initial physical plant and retain some income to roll out improvements every year. The ISP could charge every customer $40 and implement congestion-control during peak times and call it a day. Or, it could do usage-sensitive billing so those who were getting more benefit from the pipes paid a greater proportionate share. Let's assume that since it's a co-op any over-earnings that weren't re-invested would be returned to the owner-customers on a pro-rated basis. Two other bonuses with usage-sensitive pricing: 1) You may get more customers as low-end users who balk at $40/month can afford service, and 2) High-end users who were blindly maxing out their connections 24/7 will begin to act more rational. In many cases, this means less usage by peak users or during peak times if you have peak-time pricing. This makes future planning easier. You'll know where you really need to split a neighborhood node and you'll have the income figures to justify the expense.

By the way, this isn't just hypothetical. There are many neighborhoods in the United States where Cable TV internet speeds drop well below 50% during peak usage hours. Those cable companies need to make capital investments in their neighborhoods to fix the problem. That money has to come from somewhere. It should come from those users who are saturating the pipes during those hours more than from the users who are doing casual surfing.

As for DSL, the problem there is one of maximum speed more than shared capacity. Your maximum speed is dictated by the distance from your neighborhood box, but unlike cable you don't share a limited bandwidth pool within the neighborhood. The argument for charging by the bit is weaker for DSL and FIOS than it is for Cable- or other shared-medium Internet.