Broadband speed humps won't work, says TalkTalk boss

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 5 Jun 2009 at 16:55

Carphone Warehouse boss Charles Dunstone has attacked proposals to force ISPs to choke the connections of alleged file sharers.

Earlier this week Respect For Film called for "speed bumps" on the connections of file sharers, which would effectively cripple high-bandwidth applications. The proposal was seemingly endorsed by culture secretary, Andy Burnham, who claimed the Government was prepared to take "technical measures" against file sharers.

Dunstone, who has spoken out against draconian anti-piracy measures in the past, says such schemes are doomed to fail.

"If you try speed humps or disconnections for peer-to-peer, people will simply either disguise their traffic or share the content another way," the TalkTalk supremo claims, according to a report in The Guardian.

"It is a game of Tom and Jerry and you will never catch the mouse. The mouse always wins in this battle and we need to be careful that politicians do not get talked into putting legislation in place that, in the end, ends up looking stupid."

Dunstone says the copyright owners need to find ways of persuading consumers to download legally, rather than fixating on the file sharers. "If people want to share content they will find another way to do it," he says.

"It is more about education and allowing people to get content easily and cheaply that will make a difference. This idea that it is all peer-to-peer and somehow the ISPs can just stop it is very naive."

To hear the PC Pro team's thoughts on speed bumps for file sharers, download this week's PC Pro podcast.