On Wednesday 09 April 2008 14:32:45 Andy wrote: > Mr I Forrester wrote: > > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/03/bbc_highfield_isp_threat/ > > The saga continues courtesy of the Reg. > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/09/bbc_tiscali_iplayer/ > (BBC vs ISPs: Bandwidth row escalates as Tiscali wades in) > > ISPs seem to be upset by the idea they should provide customers with > what they pay for!
In the case of ISP's this is sadly very true, even more so if you consider the direction of their business models. Let me explain: At present the only reason for the general public to buy internet 'access' (regardles of how it is bundled) is to access resources and content available on the web. Without those resources and content there would be no need for ISP's. It doesn't matter how fast or fabulous a data connection is, the whole point of the exercise is to use that connection to get at all those lovely resources. The unfortunate but more and more obvious direction some ISP's are going in is the old (as I remember it) AOL model. This is where the ISP provides certain services of their own (like mail and premium content, possibly streaming video etc..) from within their own networks. This is cheap for them to do and in theory the provision of premium ISP provided content means that they can squeeze more money out of their customers (pay to download wallpaper, a film, some oftware etc..). The web outside of their own network is not useful to them except as a lure, they cant (yet) charge you for using amazon, or google services, or somehow bill you extra for the e-books you download from project Gutenberg). As such some ISP's increasingly see external content providers (especially anything that involves a large amount of traffic) and the web in general (which competes with their own services) as a negative and costly addition. So, the BBC needs to (and is) fight(ing) its corner, as it should, customers pay for web access, content providers pay for web access, there is no need for additional charges to be levied to any particular group for specific services (in fact it breaks the web). The obvious solution is for the various ISP's to charge correctly for what they provide, a 8/1M connection should be just that, if it is capped then fine, make that clear, charge more for uncapped if the customer will bear it, if they wont, you wont get that customer. This however comes with additional problems, ISP's want market penetration and large customer bases, not just for the monthly fee's but also so they can sell their customers additional stuff (and apparently so they can sell their personal data, ala Phorm etc..). If they charge higher prices, they might find adoption waning, or competition increasing. I could rehash the whole network neutrality debate in more detail here, but most people have heard it so I wont, but in essence, this really seems to be a case of ISP's wanting more money, without having to increase their charges to customers. I would have to say that the BBC has probably got the support of anyone who has any idea about this issue, they certainly have mine.
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