Procera has introduced a new deep packet inspection (DPI) system it claims can accurately monitor traffic in real-time, a fundamental enabler for data service providers to start creating service tiers, and to define entirely new services.

Procera had one rack-unit (1RU) and 2RU models; the company just introduced 5RU and 12RU models. The latter two are capable of 20Gbps and 80 Gbps throughputs, respectively, which the company calculates will support up to 1.5 million and 5 million subscribers.

At the bare minimum, the system can pay for itself if it’s used to provide the data necessary to perform traffic shaping – prioritization, QoS/QoE, and bandwidth limitation.

Procera president Jim Brear said one carrier customer using the system was able to save millions simply by being able to identify traffic patterns and severing costly peering relationships in instances where the carrier could handle the traffic itself. Other customers, he said, were able to save up to 30 percent in network costs simply by traffic shaping.

The biggest value, however, should come with being able to identify traffic and then create services that charge according to usage. He said the Procera DPI system is so refined, it can often identify the signatures of specific brands of products in the same device category associated with any given service.

Usage charging changes the model, he acknowledged. Furthermore, customers will have to deal with network neutrality issues (Brear noted that Procera has one customer that declines to be identified because it’s concerned it will be sucked into the net neutrality debate), but traffic management must be performed, Brear argued, and it’s best to have the most capable tools and reporting available to do that.

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