Sandvine has reviewed the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) December 23, 2010 Report and Order (the Order) related to Preserving the Free and Open Internet. In short the Order appears to stabilize the environment for deploying Sandvine’s Network Policy Control solutions in the United States.  These new rules are not a dramatic change from the prior four Net Neutrality principles, from the FCC’s broadband Policy Statement of 2005, which require open access to lawful content, applications, devices and competition, all subject to reasonable network management.

Notably, for Sandvine, the Order appears to preserve an environment in which deployment of Sandvine’s Network Analytics, Fairshare, Usage Management and Quota Management policy applications can continue to thrive.  Other significant aspects of the Order are highlighted in the sections below.  Sandvine continues to provide solutions to service providers globally, in support of their compliance with their respective regulatory and legislative environments.

The Rules in Brief

The basic rules require:

1. Transparency of traffic management practices, performance characteristics and the commercial terms of service. Mobile broadband providers must also disclose third-party device and application limits and any relevant criteria for use of such third-party offerings.
2. No blocking of lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices. A less onerous no blocking rule applies to mobile broadband providers, which may not block access to lawful websites and may not block applications that compete with their own video or voice telephony services.
3. No unreasonable discrimination such as to favour one’s own application offerings over competitive offerings. The FCC acknowledged that some discrimination is beneficial. They also noted that paid prioritization is likely to be unreasonable, but will be subject to case-specific review. This rule does not apply to mobile providers.
4. All of the rules are generally subject to Reasonable Network Management.

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Network Neutrality has rarely been out of the news for the last three years, but it picked up even more steam last fall when the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) that included six proposed rules to preserve an “Open Internet”.  The first four are based on the principles of the FCC’s broadband Policy Statement of 2005, which require open access to lawful content, applications, devices and competition, all subject to reasonable network management. The NPRM also introduced two new rules: non-discrimination and transparency, also subject to reasonable network management.

While public comments to the NPRM were streaming in, Read the rest of this entry »

Last week we exhibited at The Cable Show in Los Angeles, CA. This event provides a forum for all the Cable MSOs to gather to discuss content/programming, TV networks and much of the infrastructure to deliver next generation video.

Alongside the very Hollywood-esque show is CableNet. This always well-attended “product demo-focused” pavilion of the show, organized by CableLabs, provides insight into timely key themes such as interactive TV, video on demand, and broadband over cable. It gives operators the chance to see a broad range of product demonstrations within a very focused area.

Sandvine took the opportunity to demonstrate its latest product in our Network Business Intelligence Portfolio.  Network Data Analytics is focused on providing an executive level dashboard view of how subscribers are using their broadband service. It aims to answer questions like “How do my DOCSIS 3 subscribers use their service compared to the DOCSIS 2 subscribers?” or “Where will I get the best return on my CAPEX budget?”. It was great to see the many cable operators who  dropped by to explore. They were quite intrigued by the flexibility of the product and how it could potentially help them to enhance their businesses and their customers quality of experience. After all, providing better broadband is the end goal.

In addition to a wide range of operators, we were pleased to host FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski, when he dropped by to see some of the trends that Sandvine is currently reporting on.

Were you at the show? Please share your better broadband observations and experiences.

Thursday’s panel at CTIA captured the key common theme of this year’s show – how to continue the innovation of the U.S. mobile telecommunications industry with the help, not the hindrance, of regulators.  The panel represented a novel mix of entertainment, with 3D advocate James Cameron, social networking, epitomized by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, and the “U.S. government CTO” Aneesh Chopra.  Mr. Chopra sidestepped the audience-popular remarks posed by the CNBC moderator which questioned the effectiveness of regulations on connectivity growth.  He preferred to leave the hard answers to the FCC, stating that his role is to leverage the existing infrastructure for utmost benefit. Read the rest of this entry »