Qwest this week rolled out antivirus and antispam enhancements for its business-VPN and security services customers.

The carrier’s AVAS gateway service guards companies against receiving unsolicited e-mail, viruses, worms and unwanted content at their external network perimeter. The managed service offers an online portal that lets users control thresholds, reporting, filtering and account preferences.

Customers initiate the service by configuring their mail exchange record to point to a Qwest-specified network mail-exchange record. All e-mail is then filtered through AVAS before reaching the user. AVAS is available nationwide.

Qwest joins other carriers in the e-mail security market. In August, XO Communications announced the availability of an e-mail security and disaster-recovery service that assists businesses in combating Internet junk e-mail, denial-of-service attacks and viruses.

BellSouth in April unveiled a service that lets its business-DSL customers encrypt outgoing e-mail. AT&T offers encryption on its client software for its Business Internet dial-up service, and Verizon has an e-mail encryption service for businesses called Verizon Secure Mail.