T1 prices have plummeted to about a third of what they were at the turn of the century, less than two years ago. Yet businesses aren't going on a bandwidth buying spree. Instead, many are using optimization tools to get more bang out of the bandwidth bucks they're already spending.

Two-thirds of respondents in InformationWeek's most recent Priorities study say that they need more bandwidth--a need that doesn't necessarily translate into simply buying more circuits since most businesses are trying to reduce costs. Vendors and communications service providers offer many options to better leverage existing bandwidth, everything from pattern-recognition devices to route-optimization software to alternative services that offer huge amounts of bandwidth for a fixed price.

Using pattern-matching techniques from DNA analysis, Peribit Networks Inc. offers a product that searches for repetitive traffic, builds directories of that data, and eliminates the duplicate information from crossing the network, increasing capacity by up to 10 times. Businesses install a box that scans files at each end of a connection.

Take the example of a presentation with a company logo at the bottom of each slide. The Peribit device recognizes that repetition, captures the logo, and stores it in the directories of all Peribit devices on the network. When someone sends a presentation, Peribit strips the logo from the file, replaces it with a code as it's sent over the network, and adds the logo back to the files at the receiving end. Use that process for duplicate E-mail attachments, contracts, data analysis, or graphics, and an average of 78% of packets are eliminated, CEO Jef Graham says. (Need a good lawyer joke? Graham says 90% of the information that law firms send over their networks is duplicate data.) Peribit's SR-50 and SR-55 devices are priced at $6,000 to $52,000 each, depending on the port speed.

The idea of using DNA modeling in IT intrigued Irving Tyler, VP and CIO of Quaker Chemical Corp. When the company recently decided to add a J.D. Edwards & Co. enterprise resource planning application to its global frame relay network, Tyler was concerned the company would have to add more bandwidth. A month ago, Tyler installed Peribit's appliance at three of the company's highest-volume sites, and he now has three times more capacity on the existing lines. "We have real growth potential without adding more circuit costs," Tyler says. "The quality of the traffic is good, and it was a true plug-and-play solution." The extra bandwidth would have cost two to three times more than the Peribit option over a two-year period, he says.

The return on investment was even better for Finisar Inc., a maker of networking and testing products that dodged $18,000 a month in new bandwidth costs by deploying Peribit's appliance. Finisar boasts a 2-1/2-month payback and four times more bandwidth, says Patrick Wilson, director of IT.