Re: ISPs whinging about BBC's iPlayer

alexd wrote:
On Wed, 09 Apr 2008 23:48:14 +0100, Nick wrote:

Cork Soaker wrote:
: I thought the BBC player was overloading the backhaul, which I
thought : already was fibre?

The backhaul is nowhere near overloaded.
AIUI ISPs have to pay for bandwidth. The more bandwidth each user takes
up the more the ISPs have to pay. I thought backhaul costs were in the
region of £100 per month for 1Mb/s.

Yes, that's what BT charges ISPs for Centrals. However, how much unlit fibre does BT have? That's the /real/ backhaul. Is the price difference that BT charge for 10M/100M/1G EES justified? The bit of fibre doesn't care how much data you're shoving down it.


I thought BT was constrained by the regulator so that it didn't undercut LLU suppliers.

But the point is surely that there needs to be a cost benefit for them to provide more bandwidth. VirginMedia also appear to have problems providing sufficient bandwidth. I'm not entirely sure where this is happening but I suspect it is in their backhaul too. Presumably they want to make as much use of their fibre as possible?

They're crying over peering costs,
Where can I find out what these are?

By definition peering doesn't cost anything [other than installing the kit to do it, and getting data to/from the peering point].

BBC, CH4, Sky and so on all use P2P
technologies to REDUCE the peering costs anyway, the idiot ISPs should
take up the technology, as some already are!

Even if they cache they still have to pay for the backhaul don't they.

Unfortunately yes, that's the way IPstream works - if an ISP has two customers on the same exchange who want to share a bit of data with each other [as in a P2P distribution system], that data will have to travel all the way across BT's network, down the ISP's Central and back again. Bug or feature, you decide!


Surely it not a bug or feature but a practicality. Extra kit at the exchange cost money. P2P may make this worthwhile but I would have been a bit scared of paying for it if I thought the government might legislate against P2P. I guess BBC player is the first really big legitimate P2P system.


Greedy ISPs looking to make more money.

That is what running a business is about, isn't it?

Personally I have little sympathy with ISPs that promise Unlimited!* internet access and then cry about it when people actually, er, use it.


Companies are often constrained to do whatever it takes to get customers. If everyone else offers unlimited it is hard to be the grown up and say well actually we can't offer that, all the kids will go next door.

I would like to see the regulators tighten up the definitions so that the customer investing in a year long contract isn't buying a pig in a poke.

: I think the OP was right the ISPs need to bill based on the amount :
downloaded/uploaded.

How truly idiotic.

Why?

Not idiotic at all. Why should Grandma[1] who does a bit of light emailing and looks at the odd website be paying the same as some tosser like me to saturates his connection all day with torrents?


But there does seem to be tremendous antipathy for this viewpoint. It is hard for an non-technical person like me to follow as a lot of people seem more interested in justifying their own position rather than explaining.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: ISPs whinging about BBCs iPlayer
    ... The backhaul is nowhere near overloaded. ... AIUI ISPs have to pay for bandwidth. ... fibre does BT have? ...
    (uk.telecom.broadband)
  • Re: ISPs whinging about BBCs iPlayer
    ... The backhaul is nowhere near overloaded. ... The more bandwidth each user takes up the more the ISPs have to pay. ...
    (uk.telecom.broadband)
  • Re: ISPs whinging about BBCs iPlayer
    ... : and operating the cache. ... Then - can you share the cache between the different ISPs? ... bandwidth when switching to this kind of technology, ... :> The data travelling back down to the ISP backbone doesn't cost them a ...
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