BT Wants Cash For iPlayer, Video Bandwidth 229
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."
WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Wrong Approach (Score:5, Informative)
Here's an independent UK ISP ratings site [dslzoneuk.net]. 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:That's the way BT is (Score:5, Informative)
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).
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.
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.
I'll concede that. It's a terrible move to screw over your own customers like that.
Of course they aren't, they're a large company. Large companies are never the good guys.
Re:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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:WTF? (Score:1, Informative)
as of a month ago, iPlayer no longer uses peer-to-peer
Re:Non-issue (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Market forces in natural monopolies..? (Score:3, Informative)
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:WTF? (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Non-issue (Score:2, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
It's because Iplayer is stupid (Score:3, Informative)
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:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth (Score:2, Informative)
I recently switched provider to Be [bethere.co.uk], 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 (Score:5, Informative)
BT, the monopoly provider of telephone landlines in most of the UK, only have IPstream [wikipedia.org] 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:Non-issue (Score:5, Informative)
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:Competition (Score:3, Informative)
Re:BT should paying the BBC (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It's because Iplayer is stupid (Score:3, Informative)
they arent using WMP anymore - they're using Adobe Air to deliver the downloadable streams.
its also not p2p anymore
Re:Non-issue (Score:1, Informative)
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 (Score:3, Informative)
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 [ofcom.org.uk]
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:Share the cake... or make the cake bigger (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This is more about BT Vision than bandwidth (Score:2, Informative)
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 (Score:2, Informative)