Public broadcaster + Bittorrent = massive public savings

Posted by Cory Doctorow, March 2, 2008 6:33 PM | permalink

Eirikso sez, "A while ago you wrote about the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and our experiment with distribution of a very popular TV-show DRM-free and in full quality through the use of BitTorrent. The experience so far has been very positive and we've now published some more thoughts on the project and some numbers. The load balancing of the BitTorrent protocol works perfectly well, people are happily seeding the files and the download time for one full 30 minute episode is still 3-5 minutes on a good broadband connection in Norway. We're closing in on 90 000 downloads of the torrent files and are running with a P2P ratio of about 95%. Saving huge on bandwidth cost." Link (Thanks, Eirikso!)

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Discussion

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#1 posted by help i cant comfirm my username themelonbread , March 2, 2008 6:41 PM

Too bad Comcast hates the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and the KJV bible.

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#2 posted by mlc , March 2, 2008 7:18 PM

Meanwhile, in the United States

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#3 posted by bbum , March 2, 2008 8:15 PM

Someone has to pay for the bandwidth.

If the Norwegian ISPs are relatively unique, they will have sold bandwidth without over-promising availability of bandwidth to their customers.

If they are anything like the United States ISPs, then they will have promised -- say -- 3mbps to the customer site, but their network backbone will be incapable of sustaining the aggregated bandwidth if any significant # of customers actually try to *use* that bandwidth.

BitTorrent shifts bandwidth costs to the consumer. Works great, if the customer is actually getting what they think they are paying for....

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#4 posted by OM

, March 2, 2008 8:27 PM

"...Coming soon to a torrent server near you: Pee-BS's Complete Collector's Collection Series! First up: the Complete Homer Formby series, followed by every single painting lesson show featuring the guy with the afro that Danger Mouse ripped off! And it's all for free...although donations will be accepted!"

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#5 posted by arkizzle , March 2, 2008 8:33 PM

As you sort of answered yourself, we already pay for the bandwidth. So now it's up to the isps to live up to the promises the imply in their campaigns.

Just like per-minute dial-up turned into package dial-up, and that turned into broadband and broadband got faster and faster, eventually as more respectable companies use bit-torrent, the the isps will have to accomodate it's use. If we all start consistently using our full bandwidth, they will presumably start having to be very specific about what bandwidth we are actualy leasing from them.

The internet/isps are in a funny place at the minute, where only a select few users really max out their lines, but when we all start to really utilize the internet as our main entertainment delivery system, with companies like the BBC, Vuze, the norwegians above, AppleTV, etc. getting on board, there will have to be changes. Capitalism says so. The changes may, of course, be good or bad for the end user. (tiers etc.)

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#6 posted by acrocker , March 2, 2008 8:35 PM

#3.

I don't know about you, but I don't pay extra for every MB of information I download. And with cost/MBPS going down I'm not exaclty sure the cost is getting shifted to me, the consumer.

Yes I'm on comcast. Yes my torrents work (although they are a little slow...)

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#7 posted by Chris Schmidt , March 2, 2008 10:38 PM

My favorite quote:

"DRM doesn’t work. The only way to control your content is to be the best provider of it."