"Hidden Costs Of Watching TV Online": My Response In The Telegraph
I've read all the comments on my post, and am delighted that so much thought and time has already clearly been put into this debate.
As this latest debate was sparked off by a piece in the Daily Telegraph, they've let me do an article, which appears in today's paper - you can read it here.
In spite of the The Register's somewhat anti-BBC stance on this issue, its readership seems to have a more balanced set of views that you might want to scroll through here.
All I want to say now is that we actually have a very constructive relationship with the ISPs. We don't think that we should pay for their content distribution costs, but that difference of opinion does not mean we don't work together. We do, and although actually a relatively small player in the internet landscape (about 2% share of time spent online goes to bbc.co.uk), we will do what we can to help drive broadband penetration and adoption, for the benefit of all players.
I'll do a longer post when I've read more of the comments/reactions across the web.
Ashley Highfield is Director, BBC Future Media & Technology.
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Comments
I think ISP's should think long down the line as technology is changing and improving, they need to get into gear and actually start building plans on becoming more better with the services which are technically coming out.
ADSL lines are not really upto scratch... about 75% of broadband customers dont really get what they should from there ISP's as they live too far away from their exchange. They should be looking at improving there services before they all start to failover!
I would say Virgin with there optic fibre technology is the way and if ADSL providers need to take this way in the future then they should be thinking about this now not later.
In reality the Internet is surely clogged up by spam. Rather than turning guns the BBC, it would be far better if ISPs took a robust line against those who distribute this junk mail. Uuch of it advertises counterfeit goods and drugs. The latter are in many cases poisonous. Does anyone really believe that the potions advertised will have users of them pursued by Page 3 girls tearing their clothes off?
If reputable ISPs were to block all outgoing spam, the traffic would be dramatically reduced. If they also blocked an incoming spam released by less scrupulous ISPs, traffic would be further reduced and most users of email would applaud.
Ashley,
It's not their distribution costs that are the issue.
It's your using viewers as "broadcasters by proxy" - it's your content, you should be paying for your distribution costs - you're shunting the burden of distribution onto viewers.
They are supposed to only pay (through ISP fees) for downloading from you. You (the BBC) are supposed to pay your share of getting that content out.
By then turning viewers into "virtual" broadcasters, you add to their traffic burden transport of your content - saving you the cost and load of distributing it yourselves.
As I have said before, this is a virtual equivalent of "You can download our content, but you have to let all your neighbours watch it through your window".
The added costs to the viewers, if bandwidth use increases because they're de-facto affiliate stations of the BBC, is effectively a double license fee. Distribution costs are yours, from your servers to viewers.
iPlayer download dumps the costs on the viewer, because they effectively become BBC servers.
No-one is saying the BBC should foot the cost of ISP traffic increases - but you're avoiding having to pay for your *own* by reducing the traffic direct from you (that *you'd* have to pay for) and dumping it on viewers.
THAT is the ethical error.
ISPs are a red herring that's being used to muddy the waters, given the feelings against ISPs as they stand already.
While I agree that it doesn't make sense for the BBC to pay for the distribution of content, it does seem a little disengenuous to claim that the BBC is a relatively small player on the internet landscape. How many other sites in that landscape can claim to have such a large share of time spent online?
Very few, I reckon, and that makes the BBC a big player indeed.
800lb Gorilla:
That only applies to the downloadable version of the iPlayer system. The streaming Flash version, which, despite expectations of the BCC, it would seem, is now getting the lion's share of attention, is purely one way: BBC->Viewer.
It doesn't actually matter whether the content is coming from a BBC server, a user's ADSL connection or a random proxy: the data is still being transferred, and it appears that it's the sheer volume that is causing the problem.
Before iPlayer, the average person was downloading smaller amounts, as, despite media outcry, the average person doesn't bother with torrents or other streaming. Now, there is a whole bunch of people who can get quality content for 7 days, with no effort beyond a couple of clicks - no extra software, no searching, nothing. And they are doing that!
It could be that the 7 day window is contributing to the problems: everyone who wants to see a programme has to either watch in that 7 day window, else install extra software to download it (whether iPlayer or torrent). Therefore, if something is popular, it presumably generates a surge of traffic, causing ISPs and the BBC a headache...
Matthew @ 4
Sorry for omitting I was talking about iPlayer Download, not the Flash one. I was continuing the thread from Ashley's original blog entry, and forgot people might not have read it.
The volume is an issue, and the ISPs have definitely borked with the "unlimited" claims with 'up to" in very small print, skipping "and then only on a good day when the sun is in alignment with the stock price of Outer Mongolian Hams" or something.
iPlayer Download is not great though.
Setting the the issues with Kontiki itself aside, there's a lack of transparency in the peer to peer side, and it's going to chew user's allocations up.
The BBC gets funded to produce and broadcast. The license fee pays for the bandwidth the BBC buys.
The content is from the BBC, it's sent out once (basic concept) to one user of iPlayer download - the BBC pays for that transmission.
The user is then made a virtual broadcaster by virtue of peer-to-peer, and the content is distributed by the user to (basic concept) 10 users.
The total bandwidth used by the BBC is one, the total bandwidth used by the user is 11 (initial download then uploading to 10 people).
Yes, that's the way peer-to-peer is supposed to work.
The problem is, the user is likely to end up having to pay for those 10 people who get a copy of the content from him, whereas the BBC only has to pay for one - and the BBC are the people who are *being* paid to send the content out.
The user is (hopefully) paying the license fee to the BBC - but if the user's ISP then caps them, throttles them, or *especially* charges them more because they're being used as a virtual broadcaster, then it's a "shadow tax" by the BBC.
"We give you content, you have to invite all your friends around to watch through the window - oh, and you have to buy them the munchies".
Trying to fob the blame off on the ISPs, who have their own sins, to cover this one by the BBC is "repositioning the issue" by the BBC.
If everyone moves to using iPlayer Flash, at least it will keep the BBC more "honest" when it comes to the costs to the user for watching BBC content.
That won't help with the ISPs and their advertising, or the increase in traffic as broadband grows, but I think that's a totally different issue.
Personally, I have a feeling that iPlayer Download, and peer to peer being used to reduce costs, might actually be one of the things the BBC *had* to do to keep BBC Online in operation.
Ashley's proven he's not much of a geek (Sorry Ashley, but it's that Moore's Law thing, and you re: *IX :P), but he's a manager - and if there's one thing managers know how to do, it's how to "sell" lame ideas as "cost cutting" measures that beancounters will adore.
If that's what happened, someone should come forwards and say so - I think people would be a lot more forgiving if they knew the circumstances.
Internet Service Providers don't have the right to give themselves that name. To me, they're Internet Destruction Providers. How do they expect to coupe when BBC iPlayer will be streaming HD videos? We need them to give us VDSL 2.
Another own goal it seems to me.
Ashley, the issue is why must we pay TWICE to receive BBC programmes via iPlayer. We've already paid for it once up front via the license fee. You are now asking us to pay higher ISP bills just to carry your Public Service content.
But you have said the BBC should invest in the internet as a platform, as the BBC has historically done by investing in transmission infrastructure. Otherwise, why have a platform that can't sustain itself?
800lb Gorilla has it right:
"No-one is saying the BBC should foot the cost of ISP traffic increases - but you're avoiding having to pay for your *own* by reducing the traffic direct from you (that *you'd* have to pay for) and dumping it on viewers."
Also by linking to people who agree with you, rather than your critics, it looks like you're avoiding this debate.
We've been having a bit of a discussion on my British Computer Society Blog around this issue (www.bcs.org/blogs/davidevans). The emerging view seems to be that while using P2P technology in this way could be described as 'cheeky', it hasn't gone so far as 'naughty'. Perhaps it will be the catalyst for change that wipes out the mis-selling of 'unlimited-as-long-as-you-don't-use-them' broadband packages. After all the fuss about DRM and platform choices it must be refreshing to have someone cast iPlayer as a potential force for good...
David - the iPlayer row isn't about P2P, the ISP cost increase is caused by the
streaming version of iPlayer, not the P2P version.
"Perhaps it will be the catalyst for change that wipes out the mis-selling of 'unlimited-as-long-as-you-don't-use-them' broadband packages."
Ergo, if there's no British ISP industry, they can't mis-sell (or sell) anything at all.
More likely it's a catalyst for the BBC charging you twice for content. Don't forget you've already paid for it once.
Perhaps you'd like to put that on the agenda for the next BCS meeting?
There does seem to be a layer of confusion about what the real argument is. Is it streaming or P2P? When YouTube started featuring in traffic stats, everyone cried "Hurrah!" and hailed a new era for the Internet. Suddenly video streaming was the new killer-app. The BBC does something in many ways even better, and people cry "foul!". Fundamentally, the delivery models for over air transmissions and over IP downloads/streaming are different. There is precedent - I have to pay for BBC content on DVD, and that is arguably closer to the iPlayer model than broadcast. In that case, the BBC are being very nice in not making me pay for iPlayer :-) The idea of the BBC paying for the bandwidth down my line...in other words, that it won't count in my Gb-per-month allowance...doesn't sound particularly workable. I'm rather glad about that, as it would lead to the fears over net neutrality becoming a reality.
Some of the comments I'm reading will, if the BBC invests in (and then uses) its own technology, hopefully become moot.
For example, Dirac, the BBC's codec, is extremely efficiets nt, so logically an iPlayer that made use of it would consume less bandwidth than obtaining the same content from bittorrent or other such sources.
Another area of improvement could be delivering as much content as possible by "multicast". Multicast sends one copy of the data over the internet, no matter how many people are receiving it, so is vastly more efficient than streaming one copy to each person individually.
Face facts. People are going to get the content somehow, to users it is merely a question of who can deliver it the way they want. Arguing that the BBC "owns" the content is immaterial, since nobody is expecting the BBC - or anyone else - to pay ISPs for people downloading the content elsewhere.
I regard it as imperative that the copyright holders be the providers of choice, for why else would they provide anything? The reality on the ground is that few people will make that particular choice if it's the least practical option available.
The ISPs have a very reasonable concern when it comes to bandwidth use, so perhaps insisting on the BBC using advanced codecs and advanced delivery methods would be entirely justified.
(Of course, this does mean the ISPs have to enable their networks to support such methods, but since bandwidth is apparently such a concern, they will naturally want to help in any way they can... won't they?)
Hopefully, this issue can be resolved not by threats of bandwidth throttling or extra charges, but by creative and intelligent use of the resources that already exist or are being created. Nothing more than that is needed. Why do you think those resources exist? For the amusement of othrs?
I love how anyone who dares challange you such as The Register are labelled "anti-BBC". Just remember who pays for you schemes so that you can live in a little bubble away from the commercial realities that everyone else faces.
I'm just sick and tired of hearing BBC executives spout "holier than thou" attitudes and always telling us that they know best when in most cases you simply don't.