Ellacoya Networks today announced that BT Retail has deployed its broadband network optimization software to support its more than 3 million broadband subscribers. In addition, the company announced new product capabilities, including service creation management and service plan management applications.

The contract represents a significant milestone for Ellacoya, said Fred Sammartino, vice president of marketing and product management, because of BT’s status as a global leader in IP services. The new products are part of Ellacoya’s strategic push to show how it is enabling what it calls the Personal Internet.

“Since we are subscriber-aware, we can enable a very personal experience,” he said. “PlusNet, which is a BT company, is a good example of that.”

Ellacoya’s deep packet inspection technology “goes in line, at full bit-rate, fits right into the existing network without affecting it and classifies every packet by subscriber and application,” Sammartino explained.

PlusNet has leveraged Ellacoya’s software to create broadband services that vary by usage, speed and application, starting with a low-end product with more limited minutes and speed that is cheaper than dial-up, and going all the way up to high-end products aimed at serious online gamers, he said.

The SCM includes a graphical user interface for rapid and scalable service creation and the ability to add applications and link them down to the subscriber level. It also enables subscribers to tune their level of service through a portal.

Because of its role in the network, Ellacoya has tracked changes in Internet traffic and is noticing the significant increase in Web traffic from video sites.

“It is totally different from a year ago,” Sammartino said. “Already YouTube alone is one-fifth of all Web bytes. Web traffic is half of all IP traffic, so YouTube is 10% of all of that. And that doesn’t count Flickr, My Space and other video sites. This is indicative of fundamental change we are starting to see.”