Virgin Media - Throttles P2P but will not Inspect Content

     

P2P file-sharing traffic seems to be hot issue at Virgin Media, although P2P's share of internet traffic is declining. A day after the cable operator (3.8M broadband subscribers at the end of 2009) stated it will throttle P2P file sharing traffic (here), ZDNET UK reported that VM "plan to trial technology to inspect users' internet traffic for illegal or pirated content has been put on hold".

See: "Virgin Media puts CView packet sniffing trial on hold" - here.

The original plan, resulting from an Ofcom requirement (see - "Ofcom: ISPs Need to Reduce Online Copyright Infringement - How?" - here), was to use products from Detica (here) in order to detect these infringements. Based on the statement below, VM is using a different DPI product to implement its new traffic management policies - probably one of the leading traffic management DPI vendors, where DPI is used to identify the application but does not inspect the content or imposes privacy issues.

"There is no Detica or CView equipment in our network nor is there any equipment or software currently plugged in that has similar functionality" Virgin Media spokesman told ZDNet UK ".. While we are still exploring practical ways we can understand the scale of copyright infringement, we are also conscious of consumer concerns and issues around privacy"