KPN, the Dutch incumbent telecoms operator, has come under fire for admitting that it used deep-packet inspection (DPI) to investigate if customers were using instant messaging applications on its network. It didn’t take long for civil rights activists to make claims that it was ‘theoretically possible’ for the operator to read the content of that traffic.
So what’s news about that? National security organizations around the world have been doing that for years and, in many cases, forcing operators to do the ‘dirty’ work for them.
Predictably, KPN has denied any wrong doing and that it was not in breach of the terms and conditions that their customers had agreed to in signing their contracts of service. The Insider is not sure what that means, and without access to a contract cannot determine if that is the case. However, it has welcome investigation from the authorities to clear the matter.
This is not the first time the issues of DPI usage has come to light and it may shock many that most, if not all, operators employ its use as a fundamental tool in monitoring and shaping data traffic and investigating abuse or illegal usage over their networks.
Sure, it can be used to dive deeper into the actual content of traffic but that would likely raise the ire of not only customers, but also the regulators. Nevertheless, anyone operating a network, should have the right to use tools such as DPI in the normal operation of their business in order to optimize traffic flow and differentiate traffic for charging purposes.
In this era of capped plans and the ever-increasing complexity of data bundles and price differentiation for different traffic classes, e.g. video, how else can the operator distinguish traffic types accurately?
KPN has concerns that instant messaging applications like ‘WhatsApp’ are eroding its SMS and voice revenues and may look at charging for the traffic generated by them. That’s a commercial decision it has the right to implement and it will have to contend with the potential consumer backlash, but determining what traffic is going over it’s network hardly translates to ‘invasion of privacy.’
If KPN’s use of DPI is in question then every other European operator will need to line up behind them in defense of its use. It is highly unlikely that the European regulator will unleash and industry-wide investigation if it means having to check each and every potential target.
Posted
05-17-2011 10:53 PM
by
The Insider