User 192430

Seven Tech Stocks For Long-Term Hold

Regarding Akamai, the fact that it is currently handling such a large volume has allowed it to negotiate very favorably with those from whom it buys bandwidth. This is a very big competitive advantage.

Fiber: To Own or Not to Own

What difference to a CDN does owning a network make, no matter how big, if there continue to exist other networks to which content must also be distributed? If AT&T wants to place servers geographically close to its end users to distribute content, it is able to do so within its own network, but what about the user of an ISP other than AT&T who wishes to access the content that AT&T is distributing for, say, Yahoo?

Akamai has placed servers in many different networks and thus can be geographically AND network close to many end users who want to access Yahoo (in fact, they provide CDN services to Yahoo). But will the same networks who give Akamai access, allowing them to place servers within their data centers, allow a competing network to do so?

And, if google decided to get into CDN, would microsoft use it? would yahoo?

I think successful CDN must walk a tightrope, avoiding competing both with networks and their own customers.

AT&T Builds Out CDN, Prepares to Push Into the Market

As I asserted when the first piece about AT&T getting more heavily into the CDN space:

Assuming that there is some advantage in having servers in many networks as Akamai does, T will have difficulty in achieving this since competing networks will almost certainly not cooperate.

I would argue that a strong possibility exists of a more extensive partnership between Akamai and T to achieve T's goal.