On-Demand TV Creates a Stir in the U.K.

摘要

The BBC launched an on-demand Internet TV service (in beta) in late July that was previewed in the June issue of Information Today. But the launch was not without some controversy among a variety of interested parties. BBC iPlayer LaunchedrnThe BBC iPlayer now provides access to TV programs forrnup to a week after the original broadcast with the rights to view a downloaded program for 30 days. British TV license payers were invited to register for the trial, after controlled numbers were given password access. I submitted my registration details after launch and received an invitation to sign in within 5 days.Installation and setup for the service are relatively simple, and I was ready to download my first programs within a few minutes. Atypical 30-minute BBC drama of about 160 MB took about 12 minutes to download via my AOL broadband account. And herein lies the first contentious issue: U.K. Internet service providers (ISPs) are beginning to worry that if the service becomes very popular, the networks will be clogged with video data being downloaded by iPlayer users. Users with unlimited usage packages will have few worries about making the best possible use of such services, and plenty of other broadcasters have or are planning similar services. The ISP Tiscali has expressed concerns to several newspapers, including the statement from chief executive Mary Turner that "the Internet was not set up with a view to distributing video." Let's face it, the Internet was not set up to distribute most of what it now distributes. What kind of argument is that?