I absolutely love this, Tiscali appears to be trying to accuse the BBC of...

...providing an internet service that happens to be free, legal and popular that it doesn't like because it takes up bandwidth, do they not understand the concept of the internet or the service that people are paying them to provide? They seemed to get even more stroppy at the suggest the BBC would be prepared to publicly name ISPs that limited their service

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7336940.stm

hahahahahahahah funny term. "broke the internet". The only said thing is. Im with Tiscali...:o

To summarize the story:

The ISPs are complaining that thier customers are using the service they are paying for...

Why would anyone really need a fast connection if it wasn't for downloading something (which is even legal in this case)?

my isp is tiscali and lol i never noticed any problems with bbc iplayer.

It's been waiting to happen for ages now.

ISPs pushing out £5.99/month 'unlimited' services based their business model on having a large number of subscribers who only use a small amount of bandwidth and a fewer number into heavy downloading. With more and more legal and easy to use bandwidth intensive services like iPlayer their business model is crumbling.

It's a lot to do with the cost of bandwidth over the BT network. A lot of ISPs have been selling this bandwidth effectively at a loss and banking on the above.

They've just rolled out iPlayer for Wii, I imagine PS3 and X360 will follow...even more users.

BBC Iplayer can be really annoying sometimes. Once it starts buffering, boy does it buffer slowly. Most of the time I get the error 'Something went wrong!' I mean wtf? At least give us a vague idea of why your system failed.

Quote from JO53PHS :

BBC Iplayer can be really annoying sometimes. Once it starts buffering, boy does it buffer slowly. Most of the time I get the error 'Something went wrong!' I mean wtf? At least give us a vague idea of why your system failed.

Which ISP are you with? The only time I get those kind of errors is if I leave a video paused and don't come back to it. iPlayer should stream without a problem on most connections, even my school internet managed it until they blocked it.

Quote from ajp71 :

Which ISP are you with? The only time I get those kind of errors is if I leave a video paused and don't come back to it. iPlayer should stream without a problem on most connections, even my school internet managed it until they blocked it.

2MB BT connection... It's Not good

The more TV that becomes availabe free on the tinternet the more the ISP's will have to deal with much higher bandwidth usage by the average person.

All those on bandwidth limited connections, who DON'T monitor it will get a massive surprise (an email and threats from their ISP saying they've gone over their limit) when they start to use things like the BBC iplayer and such like.

It's going to need a total rethink by the ISP's on how they sell their products, thier prices and bandwidth limits.

Hopefully it will mean the same prices but bigger bandwidth limits as they fight with each

Be Unlimited for the win.

It's time all these bandwidth restrictions were dropped anyway. If some companies can offer it, then everyone should be able to. And if they can't do it, they shouldn't be running an ISP.

It'd be like BP telling you that you could only fill your tank up a quarter at the pumps per month. You want more, you've got plenty of space to hold more, but they're denying it. And for what reason? There's nothing.

Either suppy to meet the demand or your business goes under. I signed up for unlimited bandwidth, not because I download that much (these days it's rare) but because I don't want someone telling me when I can no longer surf the net. That's my decision to make.

Quote from Dajmin :

It's time all these bandwidth restrictions were dropped anyway. If some companies can offer it, then everyone should be able to. And if they can't do it, they shouldn't be running an ISP.

It'd be like BP telling you that you could only fill your tank up a quarter at the pumps per month. You want more, you've got plenty of space to hold more, but they're denying it. And for what reason? There's nothing.

Either suppy to meet the demand or your business goes under. I signed up for unlimited bandwidth, not because I download that much (these days it's rare) but because I don't want someone telling me when I can no longer surf the net. That's my decision to make.

Unlimited use is pretty much always subject to Fair Usage Policies in the small print. It's the ISPs who offer this so-called 'unlimited' service that are moaning about iPlayer.

I've read many times that those running Tiscali should not be running an ISP

It's not the BBC's fault. IMO the iPlayer is the best thing since sliced bread.

I blame BT. When you think of the UK's antiquated infrastructure compared to what's going on on the continent, you really wonder why we aren't making improvements. And the UK is considerably more compact, so there's less cabling to replace for the same number of people!

Ofcom should've kicked the living shit out of the UK broadband providers a long time ago. What's the point in having a regulatory body that allows a whole industry to publish whatever bullshit it likes about its services?

Drives me nuts, honestly.

Both of those also true.

BT held back the UK's broadband for years with their bullshit claims that the lines wouldn't support faster than 56k speeds. Okay, we're the Old World and our telecoms will be among the oldest on the planet, but since the idea was invented here they should be f*cking PIONEERING the technological advances, not lagging behind.

Ironically, they'll argue it's expensive-related, but I'm betting they'd make far more money in the long run if they laid fibre across the country, and spend less on maintenance once it was done too.

Whilst that is true Dajmin, people in charge only think short term (though they publish long term strategies for effect). They want results and profit NOW, because if they don't they get fired for being responsible.

Until the UK gets rid of the blame culture, and stops firing people in the positions of power for the slightest mistake people/companies like BT aren't going to run that risk. Shareholders and board members don't like seeing big red numbers, and if they do they call in the firing squad. Who would volunteer lower profits for the next five years knowing they'll get sacked for doing it?

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Ofcom should've kicked the living shit out of the UK broadband providers a long time ago. What's the point in having a regulatory body that allows a whole industry to publish whatever bullshit it likes about its services?

Drives me nuts, honestly.

OFCOM seem to be becoming self-rightous Mary Whitehouse style tossers. They forced the BBC to show a judgement for use of the English language ... in a live event that is not organised by the BBC! They should stop caring about use of the English language during television, publishing everything in Sheepshaggerese and other things that no-one cares about and deal with what they should be dealing with - the spectrum (including getting rid of the last luddites from analog terrestrial) and people being mis-sold stuff.

I'm not surprised this complaint is coming from Tiscali to be honest.

They are the worst, most unreliable ISP I've ever experienced and, going by the fact they throttle basically everything but web browsing (and even that speed sucks) in the evening to hide the fact they oversold their bandwidth, they can't handle it when people actually want to use the full potential of their connection.

And their technical support is useless. If you're with them, run away to someone decent.

/rant *TiJay is glad he's with BT now*

sounds a bit like ted stevens works for tiscali now

The OF people are all industry-oriented. OFCOM have been complained to for years, now, about the misrepresentative use of the word "unlimited" by ISPs in the UK. They've sat on it all this time.

I tried to complain about the volume of ads on certain TV channels recently, and was basically told that that wasn't on the list of things I could complain about - despite the fact that there are rules against excessively loud ads. WTF?

I've noticed, also, that Virgin 1 is managing to make Star Trek TNG into an hour-long programme, despite the fact that it used to run for 40 minutes on ITV. That's 20 mins of extra advertising in the hour.. and they can't do that without exceeding the permitted number of minutes of advertising per hour. Complain? What's the point? The DTI (new handlers of previously ITC matters) is just like OFCOM, OFTEL, OFtWAT..

Whilst everyone hops on the "BT ****ing suck" bandwagon, perhaps it should be pointed out that they are investing rather heavily in their infrastructure by building the 21CN. Whilst it may not be the best or most technologically advanced program, they are improving things rather a lot, with a very high short term cost. Theoretically it's actually supposed to save millions per year, once it's all done though. Millions they can then spend on making additional alterations (or bigger bonuses for the CEOs..).

Quote from SamH :

I tried to complain about the volume of ads on certain TV channels recently, and was basically told that that wasn't on the list of things I could complain about

Did you then complain about how quiet the programmes were? I ****ing would've! That's another thing that drives me up the wall.

Quote from the_angry_angel :

Whilst everyone hops on the "BT ****ing suck" bandwagon, perhaps it should be pointed out that they are investing rather heavily in their infrastructure by building the 21CN.

Still doesn't make up for all the foot-dragging they did over local loop unbundling, dirty *******s.

Quote from TiJay :

I'm not surprised this complaint is coming from Tiscali to be honest.

They are the worst, most unreliable ISP I've ever experienced and, going by the fact they throttle basically everything but web browsing (and even that speed sucks) in the evening to hide the fact they oversold their bandwidth, they can't handle it when people actually want to use the full potential of their connection.

And their technical support is useless. If you're with them, run away to someone decent.

/rant *TiJay is glad he's with BT now*

I'd agree their technical support is shite, but really I have no problems with Tiscali service at all. I can browse the web perfectly fine, download big files without a problem and my latency when playing online is top-notch. People always say bad things about Tiscali, but I've been with them for about three years in various different properties and with different setups and never had a problem. Anyway, I have no specific point to make, I'm just saying.