Over the last couple of years we have seen a boom in requirement for online videos. Broadband users have had access to websites like ?youtube.com? Who were formed in 2005 and become so favored that Google Inc acquired them for $1.65 bln. It has allowed broadband users to view thousands of videos online at the touch of a button.

Due to the popularity of this kind of service, we have seen the intro to the likes of Channel 4s online service 4oD ( 4 on Demand ) in 2006 which offers broadband users to view a limited number of programmes recently shown on channel 4 at prime quality. It is also has the feature of downloading full movies from as little as £1.99.

This year ( 2007 ) we see the advent of the BBCs iPlayer, a free service which permits broadband users to view all programmes broadcasted in the last 7 days. Like 4oD the video quality is a lot richer than that of youtube.com, thus will cause an increase in requirement for bandwidth. The iPlayer will allow broadband users to download at a velocity of nearly 300Mb an hour.

This has raised concern to broadband users as this could lead to inflating cost of broadband for UK clients. It has also caused web broadband suppliers like Tiscali to stand up against BBC, saying the on demand services will ?undoubtedly? Congest the network. Upgrades to the Internet might be needed to deal with these services with costs past on to the broadband purchaser. Ofcom, the service regulator, guesstimates it could cost £830 million over the next five years to upgrade the network to cope with rising demand and the broadband buyer will eventually end up paying the bill.

Alternatively, the broadband providers say they would need to limit access to services by the means of so called traffic shaping. This will mean delaying packets of information sent across the network till congestion has eased.

If BBC iPlayer actually takes off ( which is very likely ), then the broadband user will also experience slower Internet services.

To conclude, is it fair that broadband suppliers as well as the consumer suffer at the cost of the BBC?

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