Deep Packet Inspection.ca

Internet Service Providers (ISPs)   » Shaw

• Uses DPI equipment from vendor Arbor-Ellacoya to delay data sent to the Internet by some applications, such as peer-to-peer applications (e.g. BitTorrent, Limewire).
• DPI equipment only examines header, or addressing, information and does not penetrate the ‘payload’, or read the content of, data sent to the Internet. [1]
• Retail customers were not notified when Shaw deployed DPI into its networks, nor were its wholesale clients made aware of the technology.

Shaw has deployed DPI equipment into their network to monitor and report on the traffic flows that course through their network, to identify high-bandwidth users, determine how to expand their network, and to manage “non-interactive” online activities (e.g. peer-to-peer file sharing). In Shaw’s February 9, 2009 regulatory filings to the CRTC on the topic of network management practices, the company revealed that their devices only read header information, and do not penetrate the payload of packets. Shaw delays uploaded data traffic twenty-four hours a day on both their wholesale and retail customers. Where network congestion occurs, the company reduces bandwidth available to peer-to-peer applications to 80 kbps per end-user.

Shaw used bandwidth limits prior to deploying the Arbor-Ellacoya equipment, but choose to invest in DPI equipment after determining that bandwidth limits alone were ineffective in meeting customer demand. The substantive increase in upstream bandwidth was generally diminishing customer experiences, and DPI was seen as a method to fairly provision available bandwidth. This said, bandwidth limits do remain to encourage the limitation of bandwidth consumption, though these limitations alone do not affect the speed that data is delivered to, and transmitted from, customers’ computers. In addition to using DPI for traffic management purposes, it is used to control customers’ email capacities by ensuring that their email accounts are not used to generate spam email.

It is important to note that Shaw has not seen a generalized decrease in overall network usage; customers continue to use high-bandwidth applications, such as peer-to-peer applications, despite the data being delayed. Shaw disagrees with the position that they or any other ISP should be required to disclose any element of the traffic management system to their customers. The company also asserts that unjust discrimination of traffic would entail the blocking or impairing of a specific vendor’s application or service, while allowing a substantially similar service to operate unhindered; delaying all applications of a similar type thus does not amount to unjustly discriminating against particular forms of data traffic or uses of the Internet. Further, the company asserts in its April 30, 2009 CRTC filings that claims of a relationship between DPI for delaying traffic and Shaw’s provision of television content is baseless, on the grounds that shaping does not affect their cable television service and on grounds that peer-to-peer service is not a substitute for cable television service.

Shaw did not notify its retail customers when it installed and began using DPI equipment, and given that the company only offered wholesale service following the insertion of DPI equipment did not notify wholesale customers of the equipment either. The company maintains in its April 30, 2009 filings that it is utterly uninterested in censoring or watching the contents of its consumers’ data flows, on the basis that DPI is only for traffic management and that they have nothing to gain in such actions because they are not agents of the state. Further, Shaw recognizes that any inspection of content would be disastrous insofar as consumers would move to other ISPs, and the ISPs would run afoul of the Canadian Telecommunications Act.

Useful Links:

• Shaw’s traffic management policies are found on their acceptable use page.

[1] This is noted in Shaw’s January 26, 2009 regulatory filings to the CRTC concerning traffic management.