Sandvine follows shift to services, user experience

Deep packet inspection (DPI) is evolving into something new. It has to ­ what it was before, with a focus on helping providers manage packets and protocols, is both a done deal in most networks and a bit verboten in this age of Network Neutrality. That's part of the message in the release of an updated usage management solution from DPI vendor Sandvine, perhaps best known for providing the traffic switches at the heart of Comcast's network ­ which has drawn the scrutiny, and sometimes ire, of the FCC. Sandvine released Usage Management 2.5, a new version of one of its core solutions for helping network providers ­ both wireline and wireless ­ institute new billing models driven on user consumption, service plan tiering and other approaches that try to manage the bandwidth crunch by influencing usage patterns.