Government Looks Into DPI, Carrier Sales Strategy Connection

Understanding What’s Behind Bandwidth Metering

The House Telecom and Internet Subcommittee has sent letters to an estimated 30 telephone and cable companies asking for details on their sales strategies. The subcommittee’s request comes shortly after the Senate Commerce Committee’s July hearing on so-called behavioral online advertising, in which legislators began looking at potential pros and cons of companies using consumers’ Web activity to help advertisers provide more focused ads.

Since the hearing, the CEO of NebuAd, a company claiming to help several ISPs (which it refused to identify) with behavioral ads, abruptly resigned. This has raised questions as to the future of the revenue opportunity.

With the congressional session due to end in a week or so, it’s unlikely the subcommittee will have to advance its efforts on this front with additional hearings or legislation introduced this year, experts say. So just what is this new move by the House Telecom and Internet Subcommittee all about then?

“The questions were aimed at the use of deep packet inspection at the router level, questions raised by NebuAd’s use of it for advertising practices,” explained Rick Whitt, Google Inc.’s (GOOG) Washington Telecom and Media Counsel. “I think it’s premature for them to go further, but I believe the letters are perfectly appropriate as a way for the members to better understand the issues.”

Google, a huge online advertiser provider, received a letter and has complied with the subcommittee’s request. The former longtime vice president of federal law and policy for MCI, and a member of COMPTEL, Whitt said the ad practice request is “a way to shed light on advertising practices and put key folks on notice.”

The search engine firm believes the focus should be on those large ISPs that control most access to the Internet. “They’re the slice of the Internet that raises questions about people’s ability to freely interact with the ’net [without] being intruded upon. People use us voluntarily,” reasoned Whitt.

The Google legalist remains concerned that the government and regulators still don’t fully understand net neutrality and the power a limited number of very large ISPs hold when it comes to controlling Web access.

That’s why he’s attending the COMPTEL event next month, where he’ll be a key speaker on a Net Neutrality/Network Management panel. That also will give him the opportunity to make a call for solidarity on the net neutrality/network management issue.

“If we all work together to drive a consensus approach on net neutrality to Congress it could help us fuel action that would benefit us in delivering services to our customers without last-mile issues,” claimed Whitt. “Whether it’s Covad, Level 3 or Google, we’re all in the same boat.”

Whitt’s convinced the combination of a new administration and heightened interest in net neutrality from Congress could provide a golden opportunity for such an alliance to make a strong case for action.

“We need new policy that strengthens the rights of CLECs and ISPs,” said Whitt. “Limiting use, setting limits, capping use and metering usage are completely counterproductive to the widely shared goal of getting more people to use the Internet.”

For its part, Google, which owns top video sharing site YouTube Inc. and delivers a variety of capacity-demanding applications, wants to insure there’s plenty of bandwidth to be had. In fact, the company last month announced the beta launch of Chrome, a Web browser it built from the ground up, to better handle complicated, interactive Web applications.

Whitt’s comments on limiting use, of course, are in reference to a recent Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) plan, announced after it was caught throttling peer-to-peer traffic, to cut off users that exceed a 250GB-per-month ceiling, as well as to efforts by others such as AT&T Inc. (T) to set limits for use and create pay tiers.

“I fully understand that operators need to perform network bandwidth management,” Whitt said. “But you have to do it, along with pricing, in a way that just deters the few that are using excessive amounts of bandwidth.”

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