How consumers' groups aim to shape telecom policy | Part 3

Although admitting that DPI has some legitimate uses such as blocking spam, viruses and denial of service attacks, Scott said, “We look at it as a tool by which network operators will create a non-neutral Internet. If you ask what would it take to not have network neutrality, you need to be able to look at a traffic stream and make decisions based on source, ownership or content, and that tool is DPI.”

Like some of the other consumer groups, Free Press advocates Net Neutrality legislation. “We see the possibility to win out on that issue this year,” Scott said.

Although that’s not good news for service providers, some of the organization’s other activities have benefited the service provider business.

“We worked hard to get broadband money in the stimulus bill,” Scott said.

The Free Press also was instrumental in changing how the FCC gathers broadband data. “The way the commission was collecting the information was terribly flawed and unworkable,” Scott said. Previously, if a single household in a zip code has broadband connectivity, the entire zip code was considered connected. The Free Press made various suggestions to improve that process, and virtually all of those suggestions have been adopted.

Moving forward, Free Press advocates “transitioning” the Universal Service fund to support broadband, which could be good news for rural and wireless carriers that would be the likely recipients of broadband support.

Other Free Press efforts could benefit some service providers but not others. Wireless carriers, for example, could benefit from the organization’s efforts to obtain more favorable pricing for the special access circuits that support backhaul connectivity from cell towers. “We’re interested in this issue because as the Internet becomes more wireless, the deployment of cell towers is the difference between having [connectivity] or not,” Scott said. “Special access circuits are a huge part of the operator’s expenses.”

Wireless carriers also may be pleased to know that Free Press is trying to get the government to review how spectrum is being used. Noting that a large amount of spectrum is licensed to the government, Scott said, “It’s been many years since anyone reviewed that to see if the spectrum is being used effectively and to see if it can be reallocated for more broadband use.”