We launch a new product -- Internet speedbump -- iSpeedbump

Product launches are always an adventure. We finally got our new product "iSpeedbump" out the door. Since it is very different than our other products (network protocol test products), we thought it should have its own website: www.ispeedbump.com

Since "speedbump" was taken as a URL, we added the "i" for Internet speedbump. That's exactly what our new product does. It gives priority to classes of traffic for small offices and home offices.

So, if your teenagers are playing "Worlds of Warcraft" and you are trying to use VoIP to talk to your sister who is stationed in Lagos, Nigeria, you can give the voice traffic higher priority than the game traffic. If you have a website in your house and outside users are constantly downloading photos or home movies, you can give that much lower priority. So basically you are in control of what traffic gets what priorities.

Another version of iSpeedbump can go into your colo to help you manage the billing situation with your ISP. Many ISPs use the 95th percentile billing model. This means that if you are at all close to using your available bandwidth, you could have a big problem and get a much bigger monthly bill than you planned. ISPs check every few minutes to see if you are using more than the available bandwidth you contracted. If you are, but you are doing it less than 5% of the time, then no problem, but once you go over 5%, they put you in the next up billing category! So, instead of paying $300 per month for DSL, you get a bill for $1,000 because you went into T1 territory. So, how do you avoid that problem? iSpeedbump checks every few minutes just like the ISPs are doing, but unlike the ISPs, iSpeedbump will throttle back your traffic. That's right, iSpeedbump will intentionally slow it down so that you stay within the 5% limit. Keep in mind that it doesn't take much to get a big surge in traffic that puts you over. Good things can make it happen -- like a favorable story in the Wall Street Journal about you or your website. Or, bad things can make it happen -- like a scandal or negative news. You don't want to have to turn off your website, you just want to slow down access.

iSpeedbump is not for everybody, but for people who have the issues described above, it is great value for the money! Less than $500 for the little box. See www.ispeedbump.com.