Sandvine
| Sandvine Logo | |
| Company type | Public TSX: SVC AIM: SAND |
|---|---|
| Industry | Intelligent Broadband Networks |
| Founded | Waterloo, Ontario (2001) |
| Headquarters | Waterloo, Ontario |
Key people | Dave Caputo, Co-Founder, President and CEO Scott Hamilton, CFO Tom Donnelly, Co-Founder, EVP Marketing & Sales Brad Siim, Co-Founder, COO and VP Engineering Marc Morin, Co-Founder, CTO Don Bowman, Co-Founder, VP Consulting Systems Engineering |
Number of employees | 200+ (Q2 2007) |
| Website | www.sandvine.com |
Sandvine Incorporated (TSX: SVC, AIM: SAND), is a networking equipment company based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Sandvine products implement network traffic shaping and policing, and include support for both blocking new and forcefully terminating established network connections. The company targets its product line at Internet Service Providers and states that it helps ISPs save on bandwidth costs by controlling connection quality of high-bandwidth users, e.g. the users of P2P file-sharing applications. Comcast is a high-profile customer of Sandvine who has come under fire from many subscribers experiencing degraded connection performance.
Company history
Sandvine Incorporated claims that their devices reduce operational costs and improve subscriber satisfaction. Broadband ISP Comcast's implementation of Sandvine products has re-ignited the Network Neutrality debate in the US due to subscriber complaints that the product interferes with their desired use of the internet[1][2].
The approach Sandvine uses to accomplish these goals with regards to p2p traffic uses what they call "Stateful Policy Management" [3] which works by using stateful deep-packet inspection and packet spoofing. This technique allows the networking device to determine the details of the p2p conversation, including the hash requested. The device can then alter the traffic to augment the algorithms the protocol uses to determine the optimal peer to use, and instead substitute a more optimal peer that is preferable by L3 routing distance. In addition, the device can be used to introduce a network bias in the p2p traffic by allowing internal users to make requests to an external network, but "[turn] away requests from external users"[3], making the entire network a leech.
Sandvine recently purchased Simplicita and has been integrating Simplita's DNS services into it's range of products and services.
Sandvine claims on their website (www.sandvine.com) to have more than 80 customers in over 30 countries.
Controversy
Sandvine is reportedly [who?] used by Comcast to reduce the impact of BitTorrent and other P2P traffic, but does so by sending RST packets rather than traffic shaping.
Previously Lotus Notes had been blocked inadvertently by Comcast but after customer outcry[4] they later apologized for their error and corrected it.[5]
References
Sandvine prospectus http://www.buchanan.uk.com/cgi-bin/viewannounce.pl?dir=Sandvine_Corporation&file=preliminary_prospectus-sept%2018-bcweb.htm