There's little question content delivery network Akamai can feel Limelight and Level 3 nipping at its heels. And that may be part of the reason it's looking beyond pure content delivery and into licensing its own technology to telcos.
Frost & Sullivan analyst Dan Rayburn says he increasingly is hearing from telcos that Akamai is shopping a Licensed CDN model that would, he said, be a defensive strategy on the CDN's part as telcos look to build their own networks. Telcos, he said, are spending some serious bucks building out their own CDN solutions.
While a telco operating its own, or a licensed CDN, makes sense from a revenue standpoint, especially as video traffic continues to grow in volume--and there's money to be made pushing content through the pipe--it also makes sense from a network security standpoint.
As TV Everywhere plays continue to roll out, and a lot more premium content looks to get online, telcos have to be looking at third-party CDNs as a possible barrier to getting the content they want from content owners worried about their programming moving across multiple networks.
Just last week, thePlatform unveiled a plan with Alcatel-Lucent that would give operators looking to launch an IPTV play, for example, access to AlcaLu's Digital Media Delivery Platform, which enables service providers to build and operate their own dedicated CDN as an alternative to shared third-party CDNs.
Alcatel-Lucent SVP of Global IP video solutions Derrick Frost told FierceOnlineVideo that the CDN model saves money and allows service providers to keep high-value content in their own network.
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