The net neutrality debate is still a distinctly North American phenomenon (and really an almost U.S.-centric idea), but that may not last for long. A group of UK ISPs, including Tiscali, BT and Carphone Warehouse are telling the BBC that its new iPlayer, a platform that allows users to download BBC TV shows, is a possible bandwidth hog and that the vaunted British institution should pay up or pay the consequences.
“The internet was not set up with a view to distributing video. We have been improving our capacity, but the bandwidth we have is not infinite,” said Mary Turner, chief executive of Tiscali UK. “If the iPlayer really takes off, consumers accessing the internet will get very slow service and will call their ISPs to complain.”
The ISPs plan to give iPlayer traffic low priority unless the BBC coughs up some money for faster bandwidth. Hmmm…that’s what folks fear U.S. broadband providers will do absent net neutrality regulations.
But, the BBC isn’t kicking up any regulatory dust yet. The programmer says that it is in talks with the ISPs to monitor the costs associated with their service.
Like smoking in public places, maybe some things that are taboo in the U.S. are just more acceptable in the U.K. You’d better believe that if any U.S. ISP were to demand extra payment from a online video distributor, that would be an INCIDENT.
Apparently, however, the BBC and the ISPs are trying to work this out, and the BBC isn’t totally rejecting the idea of bandwidth payments. That could change, however, if the ISPs decide to gouge the BBC to the point of making the provision of iPlayer service impossible. Stay tuned.
Cynthia Brumfield at 12:46 PM|Comments(1)
Cynthia, could you clarify whether or not the UK ISPs are also in the business of providing video content as are the major broadband providers in the US (i.e., CableCo's and Telco's).
The major issue with net neutrality IMO in the US is that the ISP's are also the dominate providers of the content most likely to consume valuable internet bandwidth (e.g., voice and video). As a result, these incumbents could easily thwart competition or give anti-competitive preference to favored providers / partners; Or price their broadband access at a level that makes their offering more competitive. Isn't this exactly what happened to the CLEC's as they tried to resell access lines after the '96 Telco Act. We know how that turned out! I wonder what the CableCo's would be charging for VoIP if Vonage or Skype didn't exist?
In short, if the UK ISPs are not in the Voice/Video business, but are however in the business of solely providing bandwidth to consumers, than the ISP/BBC situation is more understandable.
Posted by: Andrew at August 14, 2007 11:59 AM
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