New Edge Networks (News - Alert) is reportedly gearing up to deliver a new service which will enable small to mid-size organizations to prioritize the traffic on their private, DSL-based networks.

The company claims this will be the first service of its kind enabling management of traffic on company LANs and WANs. As it stands right now, traffic tagging and prioritization with class of service are available only on more costly high-capacity T1 lines with MPLS technology.

By installing carrier-class SmartEdge 800 gateway switches from Redback Networks (News - Alert) at various regional aggregation points on its managed network, New Edge will now be able to let organizations prioritize certain types of traffic, such as VoIP traffic, on their networks.

"Traffic prioritization over DSL is a breakthrough service offering for budget-conscious small and midsize businesses or enterprises that cannot yet justify the improved application performance and reliability of more costly T1 lines," said Greg Griffiths, vice president of marketing for New Edge Networks, in a press release. "MPLS class of service over DSL allows businesses to optimize use of high-speed, low-cost DSL access until they are ready to step up to the next network performance level.”

The business communications unit of EarthLink Inc. is expected to begin live testing of the new service next month with existing customers. EarthLink, which acquired New Edge Networks in April 2006, is reportedly planning to start offering the service on a commercial basis starting in April. EarthLink has been investing in the company to capitalize on market growth opportunities in network communications services, particularly for the SMB market.

Organizations can use up to five classes of service to tag and prioritize their applications, so that critical services such as VoIP calls or inventory and price lookups move across their networks ahead of email or other less important business functions. New Edge will honor DSL class-of-service tags end to end throughout its customers' private WANs.

"This new network capability is not just for point-of-sale. It will help businesses in different industries consolidate more of their applications over their DSL-based private networks," Griffiths said.

This new service will help organizations which are adopting new converged communications services, but which have not yet made a substantial investment in new network architecture to facilitate these services and therefore might lack the needed bandwidth for these services to operate properly during peak periods on the network. By prioritizing certain types of traffic, companies can help maintain quality of service for mission critical communications such as VoIP.

New Edge Networks boasts one of the largest DSL footprints, with reach to about 90 percent of U.S. business addresses.

New Edge Networks last made news on TMCnet in November when it announced that it had installed a managed private network for Integrated Power Services, a national industrial electric motor repair and consulting firm. Within 60 days, New Edge Networks installed, tested and activated the 12-site, fully managed private network based on Multi-Protocol Label Switching, or MPLS, technology. As a result of the network upgrade, Integrated Powers Services tripled its network speed at most locations and improved overall network efficiency for the equivalent cost of its previous network.

For more information, visit www.newedgenetworks.com.

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Patrick Barnard is Assignment Editor for TMCnet and Associate Editor for Customer Interaction Solutions magazine. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.

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