Deep Packet Inspection Here to Stay

The problems with so-called "deep packet inspection" are too big to ignore, a panel of broadband experts said on the third and final day of the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference at George Washington University here. "Every corporation has some form of DPI," said Don Bowman, co-founder and chief technology officer of Sandvine, a technology company. Bowman was skeptical of the long-term effectiveness of legislation that would attempt to regulate such packet inspection. Bowman said that DPI is necessary for Internet capacity planning and prediction, and was also useful for quality experience measurement. What is needed instead, said Bowman, are broad guidelines with specific goals.