The amount of video available on the Web is increasing massively every month, but if metered broadband becomes the norm, don’t expect to be able to watch much of it.
Last Friday saw the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) uphold a complaint against Comcast for blocking BitTorrent traffic. The ISP was ordered to stop P2P throttling, and many other telecommunications companies praised the decision.
First Warning
However, any hope that this would mean metered broadband services would go the way of the dodo are unfounded, and in fact, we’ve now had our first example of a TV company warning customers with metered broadband from accessing its content.
NBC and TonicTV launched a new service over the weekend designed to allow Web users download video from the Beijing Olympics and watch it offline. But as first noted by GigaOM, there’s a note attached to the installation instructions.
“This software is not recommended for people with dial-up or metered broadband Internet access.”
Counting Video Views
This is a rather worrying trend as metered broadband could become the standard due to ISPs being unhappy with the amount of bandwidth being used by the viewing and downloading of Internet video. Between P2P and sites such as YouTube and Hulu, this already makes up over a third of all Web traffic.
The ability to be able to watch an inordinate amount of video online may soon become a thing of the past, and in what can only be described as a backward step, we’ll all have to start counting every video we view. You have been warned.
Important Links:
- NBCOlympics.com Will Stream Olympic Games but With Restrictions
- UK Users: Watch the Olympics Online at the BBC website
- U.S Users: Watch the Olympics Online at the NBC website
- NBC Olympics Live Online Coverage To Be Used As Research Lab For Future Multimedia Events
- Will NBC Free Olympic Coverage Be Successful? | Media Mogul John Malone Thinks It Is Absurd
- Pirate Olympics: Alternative Ways to Watch The Olympics
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