Deep packet inspection and bandwidth management: Battles over BitTorrent in Canada and the United States

Milton L. Mueller and Hadi Asghari

Telecommunications Policy, 2012, vol. 36, issue 6, 462-475

Abstract: Two case studies explore the reciprocal influence between technological change and Internet governance. Both focus on the use by Internet service providers of a new capability known as deep packet inspection (DPI). DPI was used by major network operators in the U.S. and Canada to block or restrict the speed of peer to peer file sharing traffic by their customers. In both cases, DPI implementations led to public protests, litigation and major regulatory proceedings. In both cases, network neutrality norms were used to challenge DPI deployments. The paper's descriptive comparison is supplemented by quantitative data drawn from the use of Glasnost, a network test that allows third parties to detect BitTorrent throttling via DPI.

Keywords: Internet governance; Deep packet inspection; Network neutrality; Federal Communications Commission; Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission; Broadband regulation; Bittorrent (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2012.04.003

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