The Internet has seen an increase in complexity due to the introduction of new types of networking devices and services, particularly at points of discontinuity known as network edges. As the networking industry continues to add revenue generating services at network edges, there is an increasing need to provide a systematic method for dynamically introducing and providing these new services in lieu of the ad-hoc approach that is in use today. To this end we support a phased approach to "activating" the Internet and suggest that there exists an immediate need for realizing active networks concepts at the network edges. In this context, we present our efforts towards the development of a content-aware active gateway (CAG) architecture. With the help of two practical services running on our initial prototype, built from commercial networking devices, we give a qualitative and quantitative view of the CAG potential.