Buy into HD plasmas and get ready for BT to rip you off

According to a report by the IP development network it seems that ISP prices for those of you lucky enough to own HD displays may be in for a serious ‘sticker shock’ when you try to download High Definition movies across the internet (that’s the HD ready stuff we see on most plasmas in Europe).

According to The IP development Network a two hour movie on HD is about 9Gb in size and at that rate any ISP using BT whole sale rather than its own LLU (Local loop unbundling – ie they own the cable to your house) will need to pay BT an astounding £21.13 per download even if they own the LLU it’ll still cost £2.10 for all that bandwidth – yes just one movie!

So it seems that bandwidth charging will have to come into place fairly soon or the average user will be forced to pay a little extra for the HD downloaders. Of course the other option is to force the incumbent monopoly to continue to play ball and invest in new higher bandwidth technology without exploiting the customers too much, as is customary.

Margins will be squeezed further as the ISP initially absorbs these costs – it’ll be interesting to see how this affects the value of AOL UK, which is being touted on the market at the moment – as usual costs and margins are on an inevitable downward spiral. Companies like BSkyB know how to capitalise on cheap bandwidth (after all spurting megastream video data to consumers actually costs a marginal amount) and will be best sitting out the current bloodbath, though we still feel that BSkyB is missing a trick by not providing a Card and software to turn your PC/lap top into a tivo – this will happen one day though.

Source

HD-TV over IP: Who Pays the Bill? The IP Development Network