This is what the ISPs will face in the near future:
Their precious IPTV model turned upside down!
Now youtube starts to introduce high quality/resolution video, now state television broadcasters use bittorrent to multicast episodes of popular shows (Norway, Canada, …) and some deploy their own player (BBC’s iPlayer), the strain on ISPs raises. Not only is BBC eating their (IPTV-)lunch this way, also it burdens their networks with half a nation watching telly from their PC. And the thing is the IPSs have little leverage to revert to their normal scare tactics.
Case in point: the debacle between Comcast and the Canadian broadcast service. CBS launches a bittorrent version of a popular show, viewers complain because Comcast throttles their bandwith when using peer to peer (like bitttorrent) applications, resulting in degraded viewing experience while their non-Comcats using neighbours enjoy full viewing experience.
Now imagine the outrage would British ISPs trying to throttle or ban all together the iPlayer traffic (which they are technically perfectly capable off). So they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They will have ot endure the bandwith, but don’t expect them to be albe to raise their prices in a market where internet prices still go down albeit slowly.
Let’s see where this goes …
the art of foo 