The BBC's free broadband Internet TV (IPTV) service, iPlayer, is to start receiving live streams from its BBC One and BBC Two TV channels from next week. BBC Three, BBC Four, CBBC, CBeebies and BBC News are already being broadcast in this way.

The move means that popular shows, such as EastEnders, Heroes and Never Mind The Buzzcocks, will be available online from 27th November 2008 to license fee payers. Mind you, sticking two of the broadcaster’s most popular channels online could cause a further rise in broadband traffic consumption for ISPs.

As always, customers are cautioned to keep an eye on how much data they're downloading so as not to get in any hot water with ISP usage restrictions.