The BBC took a very brave move this year and opened a new service to all UK-based internet users. Download their new iPlayer application and they have access to all shows that the Beeb show for up to a week after it's been broadcast on television. Ingenious and considering it's free, a big transformation for the use of the 'net. Up till now, finding tv shows through the 'net has involved some searching and messy use of BitTorrent clients (lifehacker has a posting here: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/140366990/a-beginners-guide-to-bittorrent-285489.php about how to do it).
But now, it seems that some of the ISP (Internet providers) in the UK are now demanding financial compensation (see Ars Technica article here: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070813-isps-to-bbc-we-throttle-iplayer-unless-you-pay-up.html) from the BBC due to the potential higher demands on their networks! Oh oh...is this how the internet is going? In the long term what's going to happen here - does it mean that eventually in the long run the beginning of a so-called multiple level 'net (tiered internet as they're calling it) where there's some services that you can have access to, but you have to pay additional costs to access. That's like been told you can have water coming into your house, but you have to pay extra for it to be drink-able.......
I can appreciate that internet providers are having difficulties justifying upgrades to their network considering they're having difficulties getting cash out of consumers. At the end of the day, most consumers don't care about their 'net connection so long as it gives them webpages at decent speeds and it works. So they won't see that to provide video services over the internet involves faster connections for everyone. Considering they charge a paltry 40 Euro a month in Ireland (and you can get cheaper), I can only imagine it's not a big profit they're making
anyone in the tech field know anything more about this?
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