Non-Neutral Net A Boon To Monitoring Companies

As members of Congress, online executives, and consumer advocates debate whether Internet service providers have the right to manipulate Web traffic, a handful of companies are busy marketing tools that allow them to do just that.

These companies, such as Cisco Systems, Ellacoya Networks, and Sandvine Incorporated, offer tools to monitor and control the allocation of a network's resources, as networks grow more congested with bandwidth-intensive applications like broadband video.

With such tools, phone and cable companies have the power to make the Web anything but neutral, giving certain bits and bites precedence over others--and to charge content providers for that privilege.

"A law that would prohibit providers from doing anything to affect traffic will not protect consumers," said Tom Donnelly, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Sandvine, whose clients include seven of the top 15 service providers in the United States. "It's a legitimate business idea if someone at a network enables more than the end-user to pay."

Sandvine, like Cisco Systems and other companies, insists that networks are becoming increasingly saturated and thus, it is justified to make content providers pay to ensure adequate deliverability. A March white paper released by Sandvine goes even further: "Content providers overuse the Internet commons," it states. "All they want from networks is high performance and low latency for the subscribers who access their services. As such, they are network greedy and want more than their fair share of the broadband pie."

The heads of leading carriers like AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre and Verizon's Senior Vice President, John Thorne, have recently sparked debate over "net neutrality" with comments to the effect that Google and other Internet companies are getting a free ride over their networks.

In response, representatives from Google and Vonage--who rely on those networks to deliver their services and information--testified to Congress last month in favor of "net neutrality" legislation.

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden recently introduced a bill that would prohibit service operators from interfering with, blocking, altering, impairing, or changing any bits, content, applications, or services transmitted over their networks. Additionally, an operator would not be allowed to "discriminate in favor of itself or any other person, including any affiliate or company with which such operator has a business relationship."

It's no surprise that those in the business of regulating networks are less than enthusiastic about federal regulation. "Networks have a right to regulate this sort of thing, and it's obviously in our interest that they be allowed to do so," said an equipment maker employee who asked not to be named.

But even at this early stage in the game, there are examples of service providers abusing the power to control Web traffic. Last year, at least two broadband providers prevented consumers from receiving Voice over Internet Protocol calls through Vonage.

In addition to the possibility of blocking sites--likely to trigger consumer backlash--networks also have the power to affect rivals more furtively by secretly slowing down their service. "Tech companies allow for increasingly subtle ways to tinker with competitors' traffic," said Jupiter Research broadband analyst Joseph Laszlo.

William Greg, a Cisco Systems spokesman, said he was not familiar with clients using Cisco's tools to "tinker" with competitors' traffic, and insisted that there are plenty of legitimate uses for monitoring tools. "It makes perfect sense for a network like a university's network to give precedence to certain types of traffic," said Greg. "At certain times of the year that university might want to make sure that any traffic related to admissions and registration is not interrupted by other traffic."

Cisco does not have an official stance on "Net neutrality," added Greg. "We are interested to see what impact it has on the landscape of the Internet, but it will not affect our business interests."

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