To assist in maintaining the integrity of the auction the BBC reserves the right also to telephone bidders during the auction in order to make standard checks.
Unlike standard Internet performance, which slows to a crawl during business hours due to heavy traffic, auction sites download more quickly during weekday business hours and are slowest in the evening.
Service Metrics watched auction sites for three months around the clock, using data collection agents around the country running standard Netscape or IE browsers and a T1 connection.