Be Broadband have denied claims that they have been blocking BitTorrent tracker sites such as Pirate Bay and Mininova and instead say that it has been caused by routing issues.
The Be Broadband twitter page (http://twitter.com/BeBroadband) had a couple of updates:
On the access to torrent site issue: only certain IPs are experiencing connectivity issues to these sites. Our network team is investigating
and
Just spoken to the team who said it is a routing issue on the network. Be haven’t done anything to intentionally block access…
Apparently the problem is not that BE Broadband are blocking the sites but there is a problem affecting some IP ranges with some of the networks based in Scandinavia which is where many Torrent sites are hosted and that it is not only Torrent sites that have been affected.
Many believed that with the detailing of anti-piracy in the Digital Britain report earlier in the week that this was a move by Be to start acting to block illegal content.
The sites are expected to be back available once the issue is fixed. Be are owned by O2 broadband.