August 14, 2007
Net firm warns on web video costs
"The explosion in popularity of online video could lead to increases in the cost of broadband for UK consumers, reports the BBC.
Internet services providers, such as Tiscali, say that the raft of recently launched on-demand services will "undoubtedly" congest the network.
Upgrades to the net could be needed to ensure services such as the BBC iPlayer continue to work properly, with costs passed on to the consumer, they say.
Alternatively, the ISPs say they would have to limit access to services.
One option that would allow them to do this would be to use so-called traffic shaping. This involves delaying packets of information sent across the network until congestion has eased.
Tiscali already targets some of its customer's traffic using the technology.
The last two years has seen a sudden boom in video traffic over the internet.
In addition to popular websites such as YouTube there are an increasing number of on-demand services, such as 4oD, Joost and Babelgum, launched by traditional broadcasters and start-ups.
If ISPs had healthy margins for broadband, this wouldn't matter anything like as much.
And unlike YouTube, the picture quality is much higher and the programmes longer.
... Analysts believe that ISPs have started to revolt about delivering net video because of the fickle European broadband market and because publishers are effectively transferring their distribution costs on to the ISP."
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