BBC and ISP's clash

A story carried by the BBC new website :

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

ISP's are suggesting the BBC should pay for the extra bandwidth required because of it's iPlayer on demand service. What a load of crock! For a start, what about all the other high bandwidth applications, 4OD as an example and all the legal movie download sites (iTunes?), or even youtube? You might say that consumers are supporting the ISP's by charging for the service but all these providers give a vast amount of free content. For a lot of people, watching online TV is a major part of what they do on the internet. The ISP's are effectively asking the tax payer to pay for their short sightedness. For years, they have all been competing for people to sign up to their service, often cutting the cost of the service to virtually nothing just to win you over. Did they not expect the web to develop to the point where many content providers would supply video and audio on demand? Why target the BBC? If ISP's are in the business of providing the mechanism for content delivery, like rail services, Electricity or Water suppliers, they should foot the bill out of their profits for the enhancement of the service they offer, not the taxpayer. If that means the silly deals many people get have to stop, then so be it. If a service is worth it, people will pay. The many ISP's out there can then all compete on a level playing field and they can stop penalising content providers (and targetting the BBC in particular) for trying to provide people with what they want. Get your act together dopey....

Big Brother is watching you!

 

I recently visited the US. To enter the country, you have to have your picture and fingerprints taken at the border. If you visit somewhere that requires an entry card, you also have to have you fingerprint scanned to make sure you are the same person using the card for whom it was purchased for (ie, you can't hand your unused tickets on to someone else.

I thought that was bad enough but I looked out of my bedroom window this morning to see a DVLA van, Loaded with cameras, cruising my street. I presume it was looking for cars parked on the street with no tax and any parked on driveways with no tax or SORN. If the authorities can apply this method of control over the car tax you pay, how come they can't even tell if the person teaching your kids is safe to do so?

I think it's about the will to do so. The government thinks more about getting in the revenue which is why they spend more money linking systems to chase you for money, then they do linking systems to protect individuals.

Big Brother IS watching you - George Orwell was right!