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Latest UK BBC iPlayer Update to Make Office Broadband Networks Unworkable

Posted: 08th Sep, 2010 By: MarkJ
bbc iplayer v3 ukA network optimisation specialist, Blue Coat Systems, has warned that the latest BBC iPlayer V3 update, which launched earlier this week and added lots of new social networking style features to the UK internet TV streaming service, could make office networks "unworkable".

The latest iPlayer now offers the ability to automatically download future episodes of TV Series. Blue Coat claims that anyone who uses a work PC for iPlayer and marks a series as a "favourite" will now automatically download all new episodes (possibly at 1.5GigaBytes per hour if in HD or 630MB if non). This could easily help to soak up an organisation's bandwidth.

Nigel Hawthorn, VP of EMEA Marketing at Blue Coat, told ISPreview.co.uk:

"iPlayer demands are continuing to grow. The latest iPlayer statistics showed 130 million requests for programs in May 2010 and increase of 60% over May 2009, increases in the total number of users and the frequency that iPlayer is used for live viewing more than tripled from last July.

With the launch of the BBC iPlayer V3 this week, comes a number of new features that should cause all Network Managers to re-evaluate their network capacity, infrastructure and policies to ensure that iPlayer content doesn’t impact other business-critical content being sent across their network. From a network manager’s viewpoint, iPlayer V3 potentially adds significant new demands to their network infrastructure.

BBC iPlayer is making the unmissable, unmissable, but network managers need to make sure that their users don’t make the network, unworkable."

The recent 2010 World Cup event, which was held in South Africa, illustrated that UK broadband ISPs and office networks were generally able to cope with the added load. However some matches did push a number of internet providers closer to the limit of what they could handle.

It remains to be seen whether the new iPlayer features will have a negative impact. In addition the new service upgrades don't just impact office workers but consumer broadband connections too. It will be interesting to see whether, over the coming months, UK ISPs notice a sharper uptick in usage from the BBC's service.
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