iPlayer goes mobile

10 March 2008

The BBC's iPlayer service is now available for iPod touch and iPhone owners.

The service, which allows users to download and view BBC programs for seven days after they are broadcast, was launched on 25 December last year, and had claimed 3.5 million programme views by mid-January.

Writing in the BBC Internet blog, head of digital media technologies Anthony Rose explained that the mobile player used a 516 kilo bits per second (kbps) audio and video feed – far more than the iPhone's cellular connection can provide. As such, using the service requires a broadband connection via wi-fi.

"The challenge is... to support a whole host of new formats to make BBC iPlayer available in the coming months at higher and higher display resolution and quality, and on more and more devices," added Anthony Rose.

However, iPlayer has come under fire from some internet service providers, who say that they have seen internet traffic increase by two-thirds since its introduction. Broadband provider Plus Net told The Times that the number of its subscribers hitting their 1GB download cap had doubled.

Telecoms analysts speculate that the BBC may have to use license fee income to compensate ISPs for the increased bandwidth demands. Telco 2.0 reports that in 2006/7 the corporation paid only £8.8 million of its £3.2 billion income towards distributing its online content, compared to nearly £100 million to broadcast its TV signals.

Category: Video sharing