Posts by John Wallace

Where's this £10/month going?

OK, let's start with some recent history e.g.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/22/bbc_cdn_isps_level3/

Someone mentioned peering. The article above (and the comments that follow) explains why, following the BBC's change from using Akamai's content delivery network to Level3's content delivery network, peering with the content source is no longer relevant to most ISPs. Sorry.

BTwoolsale have for a couple of years offered a service which allows a punter to book a "guaranteed speed" session (guaranteed QoS?) which you can pay for; I believe it's used already by BT Vision's "as live" video streams. But afaik it maxes out at a guaranteed 2Mbit, and afaik doesn't get any better even under BT's much overhyped 21CN. So it's not going to do much for HD. Also as far as I know, nobody outside the BT group sees any point in it, I'm not aware of any retail ISPs other than BT who offer this facility.

So why do we need the BBC/Level3 to re-invent an irrelevant wheel ? Do *they* want a cut of the £10/month? If so, could they not make just as much money available by (e.g) terminating Ross's contract, letting him and his audience find a new home at "market rates", and using the money saved to fund some actual "public service" broadcasting stuff, in accordance with the Ts+Cs of the BBC's charter?

How do they do this kind of thing in France? In Germany? Do they perhaps have a regulator who has a clue, or teeth, or both, instead of the idiots we have at Ofcon?