BT Retail has been urged to demand that its wholesale provider reduces bandwidth prices rather than complain about the increasing costs associated with online broadcast content.

In the same week that Tiscali became the latest party to add its voice to arguments that broadcasters should shoulder more of the financial burden associated with online TV content delivery, fellow ISP Entanet has claimed that the ongoing debate is "missing the point".

Rather than debating whether it should be content providers or the ISPs themselves who pay for online content distribution, the company has argued that the problem lies with the high bandwidth prices being levied by BT Wholesale.

Entanet technical support manager Neil Watson explained in his latest blog posting: "We think the real issue lies with the wholesale provider.

"Instead of focusing its attention on the content providers we think BT Retail and other affected ISPs should be turning their attention to their wholesale provider, the primary one being BT Wholesale (BTW)."

Earlier this month, the BBC's technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones reported that BT had advised him that ISPs should no longer be expected to "pay for everything", particularly given the rising demand for bandwidth-heavy media content.