sorted by: recent | see :
popular
Content Tagged Akamai
Report: State of Broadband According to Akamai
Akamai Technologies’ new State of the Internet report, released today and likely every quarter has some interesting findings about the state of the broadband around the world. (Related Posts: OECD report.)
Through our globally deployed server network and by virtue of the billions of requests for Web content that we service on a daily basis, Akamai has a unique level of visibility into the connection speeds of those systems issuing the requests, and as such, of broadband adoption around the globe.
The findings below the fold:
Akamai data shows that South Korea is the leader in delivering what the Massachusetts-based CDN provider calls, high broadband. It means connections that connect to Akamai’s at speeds exceeding 5 Megabits per second. Nearly 64% of South Korean connections qualify as high broadband.
US, by that metric is a deplorable, with only 20 percent connections qualifying as high broadband. Interestingly, when you reduce the connection speed to 2 megabits per second, US ranks at #24 with 62% of connections at speeds exceeding 2 Mbps.
In US, the state of Delaware has 60% connections that qualify as “high broadband.” California scores rather poorly and is not even among the top ten. Thanks to Cablevision, Verizon and Time Warner, New York comes in at #3 with 36% of its connections at speeds exceeding 5 Mbps.
Here are some other interesting fun facts from the report.
* Rwanda and the Solomon Islands topped the list of slowest countries, with 95% or more of the connections to Akamai from both countries occurring at below 256 Kbps.
* In the United States, Washington State and Virginia turned in the highest percentages of sub-256 Kbps connections. It is ironic because both states have been making a big fiber push.
* Over 323 million unique IP addresses connected to the Akamai network in Q1 2008, with 30% of those IP addresses coming 10% and US from China.
* In the first quarter, the most attacked port was Port 135 used for remote procedure calls on Microsoft operating systems was target of nearly 30% of the attacks observed throughout Q1 2008.
If you want to read the full report, you can register and grab a copy over on Akamai’s website.
[from bushwald] Citrix and Akamai to Enhance Web Application Delivery
Akamai Fires Engineer Who Spoke Out Against Music Tax
Akamai engineering manager David Barrett, who spoke on the record as being opposed to the Warner Music sponsored music tax (more) last month, was fired on April 25, sources say.
Barrett criticized the proposed music tax in an interview with Portfolio Magazine. The relevant text:
David Barrett, engineering manager for peer-to-peer networks at Web content-delivery giant Akamai, says he’s opposed to it on principle. Griffin’s plan, he says, is tantamount to extortion, because it forces everyone to join. “It’s too late to charge people for what they’re already getting for free,” says Barrett. “This is just taxation of a basic, universal service that already exists, for the benefit a distant power that actively harasses the people being taxed without offering them any meaningful representation.”
Warner Music is an Akamai client, and we have heard from one source that they “leaned on” Akamai following Barrett’s statements, and threatened to terminate their business relationship.
We’ve confirmed that Barrett has been terminated, but we have not yet had a chance to speak to him or Akamai about the details of the termination. The timing is certainly suspicious though, to say the least.
Barrett joined Akamai last year as part of the acquisition of Red Swoosh.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Voxel Takes Aim at CDNs, Amazon S3 Service
Voxel, a New York-based startup, wants to upend the content delivery network business by offering an ultra low-cost service that rides on the back of Amazon’s S3 offering. It’s a move that is sure to further exacerbate the woes of the CDN business, which has already been wracked by price wars.
Raj Dutt, Voxel’s founder and CEO, has been fighting the odds since the day he started his company back in 1999. His idea of providing Linux-based app hosting was ahead of its time; it’s only recently that the world has started to come around to his way of thinking. Similarly, when everyone was jettisoning their fiber assets, Dutt’s company bulked up on dark fiber, becoming a major fiber and infrastructure owner in New York and New Jersey before expanding to San Jose, Palo Alto and other major Internet hubs. Now he’s betting big on offering low-priced CDN services — and effectively daring others in the space to compete.
“[The] hosting business has become commoditized and [the] same is going to happen to [the] CDN business,” says Dutt. “[What] we are trying to do is pretty much accelerate that.” While CDN providers may blanch, startups should take note, for this VoxCAST CDN could prove to be a money-saver for them. Why? Many of them are using S3 for content delivery and as a CDN replacement. While some would like to sign up for CDN services, they either can’t afford it or they’re turned off by the opaque nature of the CDN business. Most importantly, the CDN operators want to lock users into long-term contracts, something many startups are (understandably) reluctant to do.
Voxel thinks its new VoxCAST CDN is a better option. For S3 customers, such as Facebook app developers, for example, Voxel will pull content from Amazon’s S3, cache it on its edge devices and then serve it up from those devices. Since the company owns data centers and fiber in most major Internet hubs and has interconnection arrangements with many other carriers, it can deliver content cheaply. (See the Voxel web site for details on pricing and comparison with other services.)
Will this antagonize Amazon? Dutt doesn’t think so. “We think S3 is awesome, but it isn’t the best tool to deliver massive amounts of rich media,” he says. Will the idea work? Well it makes lot of sense. And the CDN business could use some transparency. If it does works, however, it won’t be such good news for the current crop of CDN players such as Limelight Networks, Akamai, Internap and Level 3 — not to mention all those startups just jumping into the CDN business.
infrastructure
networks
amazon
S3
Limelight
Akamai
Technology-News
Limelight Getting Dimmer?
After losing an infringement case brought against it by fellow content delivery network Akamai, Limelight Networks is going all out to reassure its customers that the $45.5 million judgment against it was merely a flesh wound.
In a letter posted to the company’s web site (and sent around to the media), Limelight notes its $197 million in cash on hand and explains why it’s waiting to file an appeal. All fine, but the admission that it’s working on a way to operate without infringing the Akamai patent means that this flesh wound is more akin to having a leg chopped off.
“Further, we are actively exploring alternatives that would enable us to continue to provide the same level of service that we always have and eliminate any issue of infringement, if such is determined with finality by the courts. Additionally, there are many aspects of our business that were either not accused of infringing or we believe are clearly outside the scope of what was litigated.”
The very existence of the letter indicates that customers are concerned. Shares in Limelight have dropped more than 35 percent since the Feb. 29 verdict, so now might be a good time for a deep-pocketed buyer with a fearsome legal team to step in.
Web
infrastructure
broadband
networks
Limelight
Akamai
Technology-News
Limelight’s Share Surge: Don’t Celebrate Yet
Content delivery network Limelight Networks’ shares surged nearly 20 percent Friday after saying it expects fourth-quarter revenue to come in at the high end of its previous guidance. The bad news is that the sales are estimated to range from $29.3 million to $30 million, essentially flat compared with the previous quarter.
Given that there’s a price war among the big CDNs, a war that last fall prompted Level 3 to announce it would take its CDN prices to about half the going rate, Limelight’s (LLNW) stable sales may be largely due to deep discounting. As Limelight spends about 60 cents on every $1 it earns just to provide service, whereas Akamai spends about 30 cents, I’m not sure how low Limelight can go. Or for how long.
The Saturday Reader
- Natalie Portman takes the Microfinance message to MySpace. She is helping raise $200 million for Finca International, a microfinance company, reports the Financial Times.
- People are having weird Mozy experiences. There are issues with the back-up service. For the D.I.Y. crowd, Ian Bell has a primer that can result in backup bliss.
- Itiva, a Palo Alto-based Akamai competitor has raised $7 million. Will that be enough to take on the beast from the east and its legal army?
- An American Idol bubble?
- The Poor/Fat Paradox. Or just watch Super Size Me.
- How US tech firms are different from their European Counterparts.
Akamai Releases FoxTorrent 1.0 - Firefox BitTorrent Add-on
P2P, now for Pretty Much Everything
At the dawn of the broadband era, peer-to-peer technology became closely associated with music file sharing, thanks to programs like Napster and Kazaa. Later, the emergence of protocols such as BitTorrent linked P2P to movie and television downloads. P2P became a red flag for MPAA, RIAA and other content-rights owner groups worldwide.
Over the years, P2P has found many legitimate uses and has found a way into everyday life. Why… even Akamai, which had scoffed at P2P, decided to acquire Red Swoosh.
“P2P has a bad reputation, but what we are showing is that it is not a file sharing technology, instead it is a legitimate technology,” Mikkel Dissing, CEO of RawFlow said in a conversation we had a little while ago.
RawFlow is a 6-year-old company that has developed a peer-to-peer streaming software platform for sharing live video streams. It is currently developing a personal broadcasting technology called Selfcast, also based on P2P technologies.
Nevertheless, the Akamai-Red Swoosh deal, announced last week, prompted me to think about how pervasive P2P really has become in our lives.
- P2P telephony: Skypeand its $4.2 billion price tag - that says it all.
- P2P TV: Joost and Babelgum are just a start. More like Zattoo are joining the party.
- Personal P2P: P2P sharing of photos, videos and other files with family and friends is becoming increasingly common place. The list of start-ups chasing this nascent market is growing by the month. Tubes is the latest to join the party.
- P2P Video Delivery is growing in popularity, especially in places where 10 megabit/s broadband connections are commonplace.
- P2P data syncing between computers.
- Distributed computing is another area where we have seen P2P technology shine. SETI@Home is a good example.
Are there any other examples that are missing from this list? Let us know.
Akamai goes P2P, buys Red Swoosh
Akamai has just announced that it is buying Red Swoosh, a peer-to-peer based service for about $15 million in stock. That’s not that much for a start-up that counts some heavy weights as its customers.
The rumors of this deal had been floating around for about two months and Travis Kalanick of Red Swoosh has been avoiding us for a while now, ever since we asked him about the deal. Anyway the deal should make Akamai naysayers pause a little. Many had said that P2P caching could dislodge Akamai from its current dominant position. Fat chance - Akamai, it is clear, is more fierce in protecting its turf than say Microsoft. It just uses its hefty stock market capitalization to buy out possible competitors.
I would post a longer post later today once I get through the email-hell!