Akamai Introduces Aura Network Solutions for Fixed Line and Mobile Network Operators

Akamai Technologies has introduced Aura Network Solutions (News – Alert), a line of managed and licensed content delivery network (CDN) offered for fixed line and mobile network operators. Leveraging the Aura Network Solutions, operators can benefit from increased monetization of their traffic and a subsequent reduction in network costs. Akamai’s (News – Alert) Aura Network Solutions enables operators to incorporate CDN capacity within their networks allowing them to deliver services to third party content owners and to use them for their applications as well.

In a release, Robert Blumofe, Senior Vice President of the Akamai Platform Division, said that, “Network operators view content delivery technologies as strategic and highly complementary to their high speed data businesses. CDNs provide operators a way to manage network costs and offer new services to enhance revenues and support the subscriber adoption of video and other content on a multitude of IP-connected devices. With this announcement, Akamai is entering the business of creating CDN solutions specifically for network operators, and helping them federate those CDNs by connecting to our global Intelligent Platform.”

Akamai currently provides operators Managed CDN and is working on developing a Licensed CDN (LCDN) model. The Managed CDN offering delivers time-to-market benefits as operators can develop robust and feature rich CDN at a much faster rate. The LCDN offering which comes with edge-server software licensed to the operator, will allow operators to both build and manage dedicated CDN capacity within the network. Furthermore, the software which will be offered for deployment over standalone servers and for integration with third-party network elements as well will ensure seamless integration with the Akamai Intelligent Platform resulting in a comprehensive global content delivery business.

Melanie Posey, Research Vice President, IDC (News – Alert), said that, “As consumers continue to adopt a wide array of IP-connected devices, both fixed and mobile network operators need solutions to cope with the traffic growth. Leading network operators are actively pursuing solutions that allow them to manage their networks more efficiently, while also responding with new services that can drive consumer loyalty and revenue growth. Operator CDNs are emerging as a high priority element of network operators’ strategies to support the delivery of all content and applications – their own services as well as those from over-the-top providers. Enablement of on-net/off-net delivery – a key concern of network operators with their own content businesses – requires federation, a key part of the operator CDN value proposition.”

Edited by Chris Freeburn