Wendy’s franchisee DavCo said today it will wrap up installation of a private wireless area network it hopes will improve efficiency, profits and the customer experience at its more than 160 Wendy’s restaurants in the Maryland, northern Virginia and Washington area. The network is expected to be fully operational by the end of the month.

New Edge Networks, a subsidiary of EarthLink Inc., will power DavCo’s new WAN, which will replace a mixture of dial-up telephone connections and individual high-speed connections that were not part of a managed network.

In 2006, DavCo installed a point-of-sale system and upgraded its computers to handle data polling, credit card transactions and back office data management. The new WAN will allow DavCo to conduct remote sales polling every 15 minutes to a company Web site, as well as enable restaurant managers to submit food orders online (instead of by fax) and to use a Web portal for food cost management.

“With our new network, restaurants are processing credit card transactions in three to five seconds, versus 21 to 30 seconds on dial-up,” said Stacy Duncan, director of information technology for DavCo, in a prepared statement. “When we moved [stores] to the network, the reaction from our managers was, ‘Wow! This is great!’”

Furthermore, by using the WAN, DavCo can eliminate one to three regular phone lines at each of its restaurants, helping to cut communications costs.