Communications provider Entanet UK, which supplies several Internet Service Providers (ISP) with resold and wholesale broadband services, has hit back at recent comments by U2 front man Bono who claimed that broadband providers were getting "rich" with "swollen profits" amassed as a result of P2P music piracy on their networks.

Entanet's marketing chief, Darren Farnden, has today responded by suggesting that Bono "should stick to singing and campaigning for poorer nations" and leave the economics of ISP provision to the professionals. Bono, an outspoken critic of illegal file sharing, obviously doesn’t agree.


However those familiar with the competitive broadband market will know all too well that ISPs are often far from rich and make very little profit. Indeed the worst offenders of piracy are often also the most costly to support, with just a small percentage of customers being able to consume the bulk of an ISPs bandwidth and thus reduce the performance for other users.


Bono also struck out at ISPs for their inability to Police the Internet of such material - "We’re the post office, they [ISPs] tell us; who knows what’s in the brown-paper packages?" he added. The remark is clearly made in response to how the UK ISPA often defends providers by saying that "ISPs are mere conduits" of information, a position that could admittedly be threatened, at least in part, by the growing abandonment of net neutrality (unrestricted access to internet services).


Entanet infers that Bono is once again demonstrating a classic misunderstanding of both how ISPs operate and the market itself. The ISP notes that rights holders still do not understand the new distribution models that the Internet has provided and are failing to adapt new solutions to take advantage of it. Services like Spotify are the exception to the rule, though there’s no guarantee they will survive.

Ironically Bono closes his rant by saying, "Note to self: Don’t get over-rewarded rock stars on this bully pulpit, or famous actors,” to which Farnden comically responds, "Oops too late!"

UPDATE - 12:59pm

UK ISP TalkTalk has also waded in with a few choice remarks against Bono's outburst.