BBC iPlayer racking up traffic in UK

It’s no wonder the operator community is growing increasingly concerned over the amount of data traffic hitting the networks. This week UK broadcaster the BBC announced record breaking requests for its IPTV-based iPlayer application.

During the month of January, requests for the BBC iPlayer across all devices including Virgin TV, topped 120 million, driven by on demand viewing.

While iPlayer is used for TV at roughly the same time of day as linear TV viewing, on demand makes up the great majority of TV programme requests with only 8 per cent of requests were for live simulcast streams, although two thirds of requests for radio streams are for live programmes.

PCs remained the firm favourite for viewing iPlayer content, accounting for around 87 per cent of all traffic, with mobile devices delivering only a thin sliver of requests. The stats do show just what other kinds of devices will contribute to the bandwidth crunch, with the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii accounting for eight per cent and four per cent of requests respectively, something which bodes well for open IPTV initiative Project Canvas.