The runaway success of the BBC's iPlayer has some internet companies unhappy at the excess strain the extra downloads have put on their system.
The success of the BBC\'s iPlayer is causing internet providers bandwidth problems. Photo: iPlayer homepage. Credit: James Cridland/Flickr
Since its relaunch at Christmas, the iPlayer, which contains an archive of BBC programmes shown during the previous week, showed 17.2 million requests to watch shows during March, a 25 percent increase on the previous month.
Among the most popular programmes were the Apprentice, the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood and time-travel drama Ashes to Ashes.
However internet provider Tiscali has criticised the BBC for a "lack of understanding" saying the broadcaster should "share the costs" of upgrading internet capacity to handle the increase in traffic caused by iPlayer downloads. Sheffield-based PlusNet told The Guardian iPlayer now accounted for around five percent of its internet traffic.
The BBC though has rejected such claims and says it is being unfairly singled out because of its high profile.
"We don't believe that the iPlayer is putting a massive strain on the internet," Eric Huggers, the BBC's controller of future media and technology, told the Guardian. "The likes of Tiscali forget that YouTube is a much bigger distributor of video in the UK - we can list five or six others who all contribute to video consumption."
Far from cutting down on the videos available from its iPlayer, the BBC is looking to increase its scope, making it compatible with Nintendo's Wii games console to allow viewers to download the shows onto their television screens rather than computer screens.
"We are looking at ways to make it more interesting to distribute large quantities of video," said Huggers.
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