23/04/2008

Cracking down on illegal filesharing could prove difficult, a broadband information website has said.

Thinkbroadband.com has said that the job of inspecting internet traffic means that rules around filesharing are difficult to enforce.

Tiscali recently called for the BBC to pay for the necessary internet improvements in order to keep up with the increasing demand created by services such as the iPlayer.

Ofcom has estimated that the extra capacity required by these services could cost between £400 million and £830 million over the next five years.

Thinkbroadband.com's editor Andrew Ferguson said: 'To crack down on illegal filesharing requires a provider to actually inspect the traffic and given the way that P2P clients have developed this is not necessarily an easy task.'

He added that sharing copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder was what really needed policing.

However, he went on to say that if the public learnt that filesharing could lead to fines or a loss of broadband service, they may simply switch to an alternative P2P client.