Enhancing the intelligent service capability of a network after a data flow has been established

The present invention relates generally to methods and apparatuses for operating telephone or data networks, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for operating a telephone or data network to enable modification of the parameters of a particular data flow while the data flow is in progress. A method for increasing the capability of the network to provide intelligent services can be accessed by any flow and allows the flow to install the services specific features to the flow. The present invention allows the software agents to be dynamically loaded into the network component to provide the services desired by the user. The present invention provides a detector in a switch in the network processing the flow that detects the presence of a predetermined control packet in the flow, and upon detection of this control packet, the detector loads a particular software object from a library of objects into the switch or router, which software object is then immediately executed by the switch to process the flow. This enables the user of the switch to request additional service from the switch after the data flow has been initiated, or to modify the flow parameters in a seamless manner.