NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Concerns over BBC bandwidth usage
------- Forwarded Message From: David Farber <dave@farber.net> To: "ip" <ip@v2.listbox.com> Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2008 17:07:13 -0700 Subject: [IP] BBC iPlayer risks overloading the internet ________________________________________ From: Brian Randell [Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk] Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 6:31 PM To: David Farber Subject: BBC iPlayer risks overloading the internet Hi Dave: For IP, if you wish. Cheers Brian - ------ >From the (London) Times http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3716781.ece BBC iPlayer risks overloading the internet The success of the BBC's iPlayer is putting the internet under severe strain and threatening to bring the network to a halt, internet service providers claimed yesterday. They want the corporation to share the cost of upgrading the network - estimated at £831 million - - to cope with the increased workload. Viewers are now watching more than one million BBC programmes online each week. The BBC said yesterday that its iPlayer service, an archive of programmes shown over the previous seven days, was accounting for between 3 and 5 per cent of all internet traffic in Britain, with the first episode of The Apprentice watched more than 100,000 times via a computer. At the same time, the corporation is trying to increase the scope of the service. It is making its iPlayer service available via the Nintendo Wii, allowing owners who are unable to stop playing in time for their favourite programmes to catch up with them later. Tiscali, the internet service provider, said that the BBC and other broadcasters should "share the costs" of increasing internet capacity to prevent the network coming under strain. . . . The problem for Tiscali, though, is that its concerns are not widely shared in the industry. BT, which provides a key part of the UK's internet infrastructure, said that the problem, "while real", could be solved. It said that the key was not speeding up connections to people's homes, but through improvements in "backhaul and core networks" - the links that operate up and down the country. The iPlayer service has rapidly become a hit after it was introduced at Christmas, even though it involves either watching a programme on a computer screen or finding a way to link the computer to the television. There were 17.2 million requests to watch programmes last month, an increase of 25 per cent on February. . . . - -- School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 222 7923 FAX = +44 191 222 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell - ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ------- End of Forwarded Message