Nashville, Tennessee-based Telco Systems Inc and a company called Magnalink Communications have come out with what are claimed to be the first Frame Relay bridges to use the DES encryption algorithm and data compression, enabling the secure transmission of information between local networks. The addition of DES support in the Route-300 bridges is claimed to add an extra overhead of only 3%. Compression is achieved on the new bridges via dedicated hardware which is not sensitive to the data rate at up to 2Mbps. The bridges have been tested with the StrataCom IPX Frame Relay interface, and certified by Williams Telecommunications Group for compatibility with its Frame Relay service.
