DPI vendors start tuning for mobile networks

With controversy over deep packet inspection (DPI) deployments on wired broadband networks at an all-time high, mobile operators and their vendors are nonetheless moving forward to deploy DPI boxes to manage consumption of mobile broadband data services.

To that end, Allot Communications today launched the Allot Service Gateway Sigma (SG-Sigma), a DPI box with 40 Gb/s throughput and a number of enhancements designed to tune the platform for 3G and emerging 4G/long-term evolution (LTE) networks. The platform will be unveiled formally next week at the GSMA Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona.

The SG-Sigma DPI box is particularly well-suited to mobile networks given its port density (both today and for in-place upgrades tomorrow) and interfaces specifically built to work with the typically more sophisticated billing and policy systems in today’s mobile networks, said Cam Cullen, director of Americas product management for Allot. The platform enables new services based on packet management, such as URL filtering — including parental controls — as well as network security and an array of consumption management techniques such as tiering and quota-based services, Cullen said.

“To be tuned for the mobile network, a DPI platform has to target a few very specific areas,” Cullen said. “No. 1, on a mobile network, the number of subscribers running on any one box is going to be much bigger. In a wireline network, 1 million broadband subscribers is big. For mobile, 1 million subscribers is nothing; you have to have 20 or 30 million subscribers to be a big player.”

Beyond such basic throughput issues, in mobile, “the charging aspect of what we do becomes much more important,” Cullen said. “The stats and visibility that DPI provides at the access and applications layer lets mobile operators build better service plans for congestion control and feed that data into mobile billing systems to support things like roaming and advice of charge.”

Mobile operators absolutely will turn to DPI, much like wireline broadband vendors, “to drive new revenue while assuring the proper levels of network management and security that broadband subscribers demand,” said David Vorhaus, analyst for Yankee Group.

On the wireline side, broadband vendors such as Comcast and Cox Communications are taking heat for using DPI to aggressively manage broadband data usage. Concerns over Net neutrality and the targeting of specific protocols have dogged early ISP users of DPI. Some mobile operators, such as Vodafone Hungary, have started to publish their congestion plans as well.