ISPs and content owners battle over online video

摘要

Content owners and internet service providers appear unlikely to reach a solution soon over who should foot the bill for ever-increasing video traffic on broadband networks. But the issue is likely to provoke a shakeout in the UK broadband sector. The popularity of the BBC's iPlayer online-video service has been the catalyst for fresh debate on who should pay to carry video traffic amid wider discussions about next-generation access networks. Tiscali has been one of the more vocal ISPs and has called for content owners -in particular the BBC - to contribute towards distribution. This prospect has been dismissed by the Corporation, and communications regulator Ofcom has expressed reservations about such a model. Tiscali would not comment on the issue, but the company is likely to face increasing pressure on the capacity of its networks to handle additional video traffic. Tim Napoleon, media and entertainment product-line director at Akamai, a content delivery network (CDN) company, said: "The big issue for ISPs is when they have to pay for transit [across networks]. Sending files over the middle of the internet is the problem."