Its official: Vodafone and Network 3 allow iPlayer on the iPhone

[Nimrod]

The BBC iPlayer has long supported the iPhone with the a high quality Quicktime stream, however network operator o2 (the only network provider in the UK until recently) have refused to allow it over 3G due to the amount of bandwidth it uses. It would appear with o2 losing exclusivity of the iPhone in the UK, that other network operates will be allowing it perhaps in an attempt to attract more users to its network.

There has been no announcement by the BBC or the network operators about this, but surprisingly when using the iPhone today on o2's network, the following message was shown:

This should make Vodafone and Network 3 more attractive to iPhone users as they are due to offer them shortly. Orange recently started selling the iPhone making them the first network besides o2 to sell them, but decided to limit users to a bandwidth cap of 250mb (PAYG) and 750mb (Pay Monthly) which makes the iPlayer useless to those users.

 

[InsaneNutter]

With 3 I can get unlimited usage of the iPlayer and watch Sky Sports 1-4 for £5 a month. If i go to my three i can also watch certain cable / sky tv channels for 50p a day so i would presume they probably have some deal for iphone users who want to use the iplayer a lot.

Its a shame o2 do actually give you unlimited data but restrict what you can do with it. Still perfect to tether to your pc though

 

[Titcher]

Surely this could be bypassed with some kind of proxy? I guess it'd need heavy bandwidth though.

 

[Nimrod]

Surely this could be bypassed with some kind of proxy? I guess it'd need heavy bandwidth though.

It can be bypassed using either a proxy, or even easier loading up the iPlayer at home on Wifi and getting the shows page up in a tab, then clicking play when your on 3G and it will stream it without moaning that your on 3g.

While that will get you round the BBC's block of o2 (or vice versa) it wont work on networks like Orange who have bandwidth limits.

Though doing further research into Vodafone since I posted the article, turns out they have 1gb cap a month on bandwidth. So while they will allow iPlayer, you could watch about 3 shows a month before your paying for your internet.

With regards to internet, Vodafone and Orange have limits on bandwidth, I dont know about Three but I remember there being fair usage limits though we shall have to see when they offer the iPhone.

Getting round the O2 block though, allows unlimited watching on O2 as there's no bandwidth limits which is good. Seems surprising that o2 have the best data tariffs.

 

[Dunhamzzz]

Just wait until O2 discover TVCatchup iPhone, you can stream TV over 3G, rapes battery + bandwith