The BEST way to minimize the risk of communication failures in an e-commerce environment would be to use:

A. compression software to minimize transmission duration.

B. functional or message acknowledgments.

C. a packet-filtering firewall to reroute messages.

D. leased asynchronous transfer mode lines.

Explanation:

Leased asynchronous transfer mode lines are a way to avoid using public and shared infrastructures from the carrier or Internet service provider that have a greater number of communication failures. Choice A, compression software, is a valid way to reduce the problem, but is not as good as leased asynchronous transfer mode lines. Choice B is a control based on higher protocol layers and helps if communication lines are introducing noise, but not if a link is down. Choice C, a packet-filtering firewall, does not reroute messages.