3Com Corp has enhanced its NETBuilder family of internetworking products with features intended to simplify network administration, improve wide area networking links and add new wide area network services for remote internetworking. The enhancements include addition of the San Jose, California company’s Boundary Routing System Architecture, data compression for all major bridging and routing protocols, IPX SAP filtering, X25 connection and gateway service and low-speed line support.

Data compression

Boundary Routing – according to the company – enables up to 10 times as many remote site connections to be added without increasing administrative resources. It incorporates data compression algorithms that are claimed to increase effective throughput of wide area networking links by as much as four times. The company now offers data compression for TCP/IP, IPX, XNS, Vines/IP, AppleTalk, DECnet and Open Systems Interconnection as well as bridging. The new X25 connection service enables NETBuilder to act as an X25 gateway, providing packet assembly and disassembly capabilities for Ethernet local network-attached terminals or hosts to talk via X25 to an X29 host or terminal. This means that customers can use X25 to establish Telnet sessions, as well as concurrently routing other traffic such as IPX over X25. The enhancements also include the ability to support the lower line speeds – 1,200Kbps to 9,600Kbps – used for wide area network connections in some countries. Users can also group two low-speed lines as a single logical connection, so that the second line can be used for back-up or to increase overall packet throughout. The new functions are supported on the entire NETBuilder family and are included in 3Com’s NETBuilder software release 6.0. This will ship during the first quarter of this year. 3Com has also announced pricing for three new members of the EtherLink III Parallel Tasking family of adaptors. The EtherLink III 16-bit combo adaptor costs $225 for one unit and $200 each when sold in a five-pack. The EtherLink III 32-bit EISA adaptor costs $350 for one unit and $300 each when you buy five in a pack. The EtherLink III 16/32-bit Micro Channel adaptor also costs $350, or $300 each in a five-pack. All three products are available now.