Apprentice fan pays for her addiction

Much as it pains me to point you towards a competitor but this story is a wake up call for any hardened Apprentice fans who are considering downloading the programme on to their computers.

A British lawyer, holidaying in France, downloaded several TV programmes including her favourite, The Apprentice, via the BBC's iPlayer service using her 3G card. Her mobile company subsequently charged her £4,900 for her viewing pleasure. Ironically she could have used her hotel's wi-fi service for just 15 euros a day.

As Sir A would say: "bladdy ridiculous".

Save yourself the money and read our Apprentice Blog here.

Comments

[Amsterdam Al]

"Ironically she could have used her hotel's wi-fi service for just 15 euros a day."

Errr...well no actually. The iPlayer service is currently restricted to IP addresses of UK origin only and so the lawyers French hotel wi-fi service would have been no use.

[Carol Lewis]

Hi Al,

Thanks for your comment. You are absolutely correct the iPlayer uses IP recognition to block access from users accessing from outside the UK.

However I am told by our digital product development manager, Dan Leonard, that the system is not infalliable. For instance it is possible to access such sites from outside the UK if a UK proxy server is used.

It is also possible to access 'UK only' sites from abroad if your IP address entry isn't up to date in RIPE.

Dan says: "Changes to IP range ownership are submitted to RIPE who update the publicly accessible Who is? list that maps IP ranges to regions, but a delay in this process could cause incorrect identification. It has a ripple effect on Geo Location software that layers extra information on top of the Who is? database."

And finally it is worth mentioning that the less scrupulous amongst us might employ dirty tricks to fake an IP address - manipulating cookies or accessing websites via fake proxies.

And now I know a lot more about IP addresses than I ever thought I needed to. Thanks for provoking an interesting discussion in the office here.

[Mark]

Can nobody admit they're wrong these days? The author sounds like a politician on Question Time. I can't believe you tried to find a number of ways in which your statement could not be seen as wrong.

[Lucinda]

I was in France until last week and tried the whole IP proxy thing... iPlayer still didn't work. UK nova was my saviour. Thank god I jumped on the bandwagon when it was still possible to sign up for it.