British Telecom and BBC iplayer

For those of you unacquainted with the BBC iplayer it streams TV programs to your computer screen and is by default a pretty high bandwidth application, it also allows you to download programs from "other" iplayer users torrent style, so when you download a program to watch it, it sits on your hard drive and as long as iplayer is active shares your bandwidth with other people who want the same tv program.....

BT are making noises that the BBC should pay them for this "extra" load on their network, I'm sure the BBC pay handsomely through their nose for the current connection they have to the internet to open up their archives to the paying public, and BT wholesale charge their customers and other ISP's handsomely for the use of their bandwidth and infrastructure... but now BT are asking the BBC to pay twice for the same transfer of the same data.... that's a bit like demanding that car manufacturers pay for the wear and tear their vehicles cause on our roads on top of road tax the motoring public pay....

This smacks of BT running out of bandwidth to share amongst its users and the 21CN upgrade they have in the pipeline for all of the exchanges simply being too little too late, BT already use packet shaping and throttling in the evenings which can turn what should be a swift transfer of data into a long drawn out process with lots of Doohickeys thrown into the mix, and the powers to be have probably prohibited an increase in broadband charges because their customer base would vote with their feet and simply swap to an ISP that was cheaper...... so BT are in a lose-lose situation of their own making.....

Which brings me neatly around to our broadband connection which quite frankly is not as advertised "a blistering headlong rollercoaster ride on the information superhighway....." it's more a sedate stumble with the help of a zimmer frame through a vat of cold molasses.....

Although I have it on good authority that BT will fix this problem, like they have been attempting to do for several weeks now with the urgency of a dope smoking quadriplegic rastarfarian sheep herder..... needless to say if I had held my breath I would have been dead and buried months ago........