Spotify, the popular free internet music sharing service, has told Hi-Fi Choice magazine in the UK that one of the reasons it cannot offer ultra high quality (lossless) music is because the country's broadband ISPs are unable to cope.

At present Spotify receives its source files from record labels in a lossless FLAC format, though they are streamed over the internet to users at a maximum of 320kbps (Ogg Vorbis codec) for Premium users, which is still good quality. By comparison, the lowest BBC iPlayer video stream is around 500Kbps (0.5Mbps).


The good news is that the country's broadband infrastructure is very slowly improving, at least in urban areas, with Spotify confirming their intention to follow that trend and adapt accordingly. This would of course put more pressure on the already strained usage allowances and restrictive Fair Usage Policies (FUP) offered by some ISPs.