BT, the privatised UK state telecommunications operator, has informed video streaming sites that they will have to contribute to the cost of upgrading its broadband networks if they want a good level of video quality in future.
BT Retail MD John Petter told the Financial Times: "We can’t give the content providers a completely free ride and continue to give customers the [service] they want at the price they expect." Petter wouldn’t say how much BT was losing to traffic overloads but did say "if it wasn’t a significant sum, we wouldn’t be focused on it".
The BBC is one of the entities affected by BT’s practice of capping broadband speeds on its basic Option 1 broadband package at nights from up to 8Mbps to just 896 Kbps to cope with bandwidth pressure. The BBC complained that this was negatively effecting its watch-again iPlayer service.
Ahead of the release of Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report, BT has insisted it wants assurances from content owners and government that it won’t be expected to shoulder the full financial burden of creating universal web access.
