Deep packet inspection (DPI) technology has been used in telecom for a variety of purposes, but it has now found a new role in the mobile data arena, as a means for wireless service providers to create new service plans that address the growing demand for wireless Internet access.
Ellacoya Networks, a DPI solution provider for carrier networks, today announced its first contract with a mobile operator, SmarTone-Vodafone of Hong Kong, to provide networkwide DPI that enables the company to offer quota-bases service delivery, billing on a per-application and per-subscriber basis and the infrastructure needed for new service plan tiers that are more data-oriented.

“As we move more to broadband data access, there will have to be analogous service plans,” said Fred Sammartino, vice president of marketing and product management for Ellacoya. “Today, you are charged for the number of minutes your browser is active and not how long it takes to access the Internet or actually the time spent downloading information.”

In markets such as Asia, where 3G wireless data is already taking off, the push is already on to develop service plans that more accurately reflect data usage, he said.

“Our solution allows a service provider to look at every single IP packet and recognize it per application and per subscriber,” Sammartino said. “They can count the number of bytes that every individual user is sending over the Internet. That enables service providers to enforce quotas and fairness for each subscriber’s particular data usage.”

In addition to enforcing quotas and billing on a per-application basis, the service providers can set up service plans that, for example, “include so many minutes of voice and megabytes of Internet downloads, with limits during working hours and unlimited access on evenings and weekends,” he said.

Ellacoya’s DPI capability is integrated into a mobile operator’s operation and support system through an open applications programming interface. Mobile operators can then measure usage of applications, such as video streaming or gaming, on a per-minute or per-megabyte basis and provide users with notification of quota limits and the ability to extend or upgrade service in real time. The system’s multi-level management functionality enables service providers to enforce complex network policies with 17 different priority levels based on application, subscriber, group of subscribers or wireless access network device.

The Ellacoya systems also will enable a mobile operator to more fairly allocate available bandwidth to users on a dynamic basis, Sammartino said.

“The data backbones of wireless networks are particularly vulnerable” to unfair usage characteristics, based on physical proximity to a cell tower, he said. “We have special mechanism that is able to actively count the number of users that are using the broadband Internet in real time, and we can do that math, take the amount of bandwidth that is available divided by number of users, and prioritize packets so everyone can get their fair share.”

While SmarTone-Vodafone is Ellacoya’s first wireless customer, the company is in discussion with others, particularly in Asia and now in Europe, where wireless broadband access is taking off more rapidly than in the U.S.

“This is a forerunner of what we are going to see in the coming months and years,” he said. “This is already happening throughout Asia--Korea and China are leading in high-speed data connections. It is already happening in Europe, and we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg in the U.S.”