The network may not be seeing many areas of investment these days, but service providers have shown strong interest in a least one aspect: deploying smart boxes at the edge to process the packets carrying data and voice traffic over emerging IP networks. The main force driving such deployments today-which include elements such as deep packet inspection (DPI) boxes, policy servers and customer record look-up databases, among others-is the requirement to more actively track and manage bandwidth consumption. Requests for help in deploying so-called "fair usage" applications-named as such in a nod to Net neutrality concerns-are flooding into vendors in these areas, and the first announced deployments have generated high-profile attention, wanted or not. Behind the scenes, vendors and analysts say, fair usage apps are being deployed quietly by almost every wireline, and increasingly wireless, carrier.
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