Nov 24, Kathmandu- The use of pirated (illegal and unauthorized) media has increased in Nepal after the live broadcast of the football World Cup in Qatar was not easy on television. In this case, users have started using pirated links and third-party apps.

International Internet bandwidth consumption on Internet service providers' networks increased by five to 10 percent during the World Cup. Now, as Internet service providers also provide IPTV services, they have started being 'proactive' and blocking the DNS of pirated media.

But technically, it is not possible to control such piracy completely. In this case, users are watching pirated live streaming.

For this, some users with technical knowledge have changed DNS (overwrite) and watched live while some have been using a VPN medium.

In this way, when pirated media is used, international bandwidth consumption in the network of Internet service providers has increased. "Such sites use only international traffic", says the chief technical officer of an Internet service provider, "So just a few days before the start of the World Cup, international traffic suddenly increased on the networks of all service providers. Perhaps new content has been added to the internet in the meantime.”

Service providers have also increased their network capacity with the expectation that international bandwidth consumption will increase during the World Cup. As a result, the service providers have said that there is not much problem with the Internet network.

But since the integration of the payment system into the television system is not working effectively, some viewers are still not able to watch the World Cup live on television. Especially the means of payment are not working well.

Even if the amount is paid, there is also the problem of channel activation due to verification problems. It is said that the problem arose because the automated system between the payment gateway and the TV activation system could not work properly.

As a result, users have been forced to use pirated trimming services as an alternative to television. "It was seen that our payment gateway was not mature enough", said the official, "and it became clear that the IPTV provider's system had to advance to the required level".

The director of another internet service provider said that he had to intervene manually to 'reflect' the customer who had already paid in the respective television account. "Even in three or four days after the start of the World Cup, the account activation department is very busy", he said.

Although the money has been sent through the payment service provider, the user name of the set-top box does not match the information, the scan copy of the payment goes to the bank account, but the scan copy does not reach the relevant department, etc., the problem has added stress to the service provider. The customers are dissatisfied because the channel that broadcasts the World Cup live is not activated on time.

According to the service providers, so far 25 to 30 percent of the total set-top box users have subscribed to the channel that broadcasts the World Cup live. In the meantime, inactive and suspended customers have also been activated.

Since local bandwidth is also used for IPTV, an increase has also been seen in Nepal Internet Exchange (NPIX). NPIX's traffic, which normally averages 14 Gbps, shot up to 45 Gbps during the opening ceremony of the World Cup Football Live.