Abstract: The present invention relates to a packet control method. The method includes: sending a packet parse request that includes a to-be-parsed packet to a deep packet inspection DPI serving network element, so that the deep packet inspection DPI serving network element performs deep packet inspection on the to-be-parsed packet and acquires application identifier information corresponding to the to-be-parsed packet; receiving a packet parse response message that includes the application identifier information and is sent by the deep packet inspection DPI device; searching for a service control policy corresponding to the application identifier information; and performing service control on the packet according to the service control policy. In embodiments of the present invention, an application layer keyword matching logic of a DPI requesting network element does not need to be changed, so that implementation complexity of the DPI requesting network element is reduced.