Opteq IQ appliance for WAN optimisation

Opteq's kit includes application acceleration, bandwidth management and data compression capabilities

A new entrant to the fiercely competitive WAN optimisation market is promising an appliance to help firms with multiple sites make more efficient use of their bandwidth.

Singapore-based Opteq, founded in 2002, believes it can go head to head with vendors such as Packeteer by delivering a mixture of application acceleration, bandwidth management and data compression in a hardware appliance.

Opteq UK sales manager Phil Green refused to divulge pricing but said there is clear differentiation between the Opteq IQ appliance and the myriad other WAN optimisation systems currently available in the UK.

The appliance supports web proxies, HTTP and mail scanning, advanced firewalling, content management and filtering, network monitoring and analysis, as well as reporting, virtual private networks (VPNs) and DHCP/DNS services.

"We don't just do packet shaping or compression; we do bit pacing technology that delivers less packet loss, for instance. I don't think we will need to be too aggressive on our pricing, but we will certainly be competitive," Green said.

Opteq is currently looking for between five and eight channel partners to help it market the product, and promises to announce a deal with a major service provision company later this year.