Tiscali hits out at on-demand TV services

By Bruce Stevens Staff Writer Monday, 13 August 2007

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INTERNET service provider Tiscali has hit out at the clutch of recently-launched TV on-demand services such as the BBC’s iPlayer saying the services will ‘undoubtedly’ cause internet congestion.

They say that the explosion of popularity of the network-intensive services will ultimately land up increasing the costs of broadband in the UK.

Alternatively, ISP’s may have to restrict access to such services or implement traffic shaping as many currently do with very heavy web-users.

Lyndsey Burton, co-founder of broadband comparison site ChooseISP.co.uk said, “What we are seeing here is no different from the furore that kicked off when people started downloading songs, and later movies through peer-to-peer networks a few years ago.”

“However the amount of bandwidth required to watch these high-resolution programmes coupled with the popular nature of on demand services such as Channel 4’s 4OD and BBC’s iPlayer create a completely different playing field."

"But, ultimately the demands of users will mould the market rather than the market moulding the users,” he said.

Currently, heavy web users – usually those using peer-to-peer networks where large software or movie files are freely swapped – are throttled by traffic shaping at busy times.

Tiscali, which utilises throttling technology, says that while TV on-demand traffic is not currently targeted by its traffic shaping system, it is likely that it will be in future.

“I have heard that BT – who own most of the UK’s internet wires – have not expressed any concerns about any specific TV on-demand services, so for now this sounds like Tiscali drumming up some sympathy before taking heavy-handed measures against this kind of high-bandwidth traffic” added Ms Burton.

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