Well it’s happened. The courier has come, and my loan 8GB Apple iPhone 3G has sailed off into the sunset – or at least into the grimy streets of Soho on the back of a courier’s bike. Needless to say I wasn’t too happy about it and as such I should be hating O2 right now. After all, now it’s got me iPhone hooked and it’s going to cost me the proverbial arm and leg to get one I can call my own.

The thing is I can’t hate O2 entirely. You see O2 own my ISP, Be, and that gives them some serious brownie points.

You see, I have deep respect for my ISP.

Firstly I like Be as it’s good value. I’m on the Be Pro package which gives me ‘up to’ 24meg download and 2.5meg upload, and a static IP. Ok, so I only actually get around 13meg, but it’s not its fault - my copper is rubbish, but it’s still the fastest speeds I’ve ever had, and the performance is consistent and reliable, which is a lot more than I can say for the Sky Broadband nonsense I was on before.

I also love the fast uploads – I’m so impatient when uploading to Flickr- and the static IP will be very useful for all the services that I want to run from home – as soon as I actually get round to them.

I also am in awe of its support line. Its fine folks were actually able to talk my tech-phobic wife through setting up the router and entering all the Static IP settings when the line was originally activated during the day while I was at work. Without needed to call me.

None of these though are the reasons why I have this deep respect for Be. It’s because it’s become a champion of the brave and told the BPI where to go.

Some brief back story in case you’ve missed it. Last week that esteemed organ the BPI, announced that it had agreed a deal with six major ISPs, that would get them to monitor and warn customers who were potentially breaking copyright through illegal filesharing. The ISP’s ready to doff their caps to the BPI are BSkyB, BT Retail, Carphone Warehouse, Orange, Tiscali and Virgin Media.

A such, hundreds of individuals are likely to be getting lovely letters from their ISPs warning of investigations, and no doubt the BPI will be pushing the ISPs to accept its ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy, where after three warnings the users in question would be cut off.

In stark contrast however, Be has gone out of its way to distance itself from this collusion, by stating clearly that while it would be willing to cooperate with specific court orders, it will not be joining the BPI’s little cabal, it won’t be going out of its way to do the dirty on its customers, and instead would inform its customers of any investigation into their downloading activities.

Now I’m not here to defend illegal file sharing but it’s good to know that in our increasingly nanny state, there are companies out there that are ‘sticking it to the man’. And I like that.

Be: think different.