Akamai Technologies Friday introduced
FreeFlow ISP, an
innovative program that cuts bandwidth expense and improves performance for Internet carriers.
ISP participation in deploying the FreeFlow program is free, due in part to Akamai’s Web content clients demand fast access to their respective sites.
Akamai has also announced the close of a $35 million second round of
private financing. The new financing will enable Akamai to expand its network.
“For many ISPs, bandwidth is their single greatest expense. Akamai helps
them reduce this cost, while improving their customers’ satisfaction
because popular Web sites download faster,” said George Conrades, Akamai
chairman and chief executive officer. “No other company is offering these benefits to ISPs for
free.”
FreeFlow was unveiled in January by scientists from MIT’s Laboratory for
Computer Science. Currently, Akamai’s worldwide fault-tolerant network
consists of more than 500 servers on more than 20 networks, and has a total
capacity of more than 10 gigabits per second. According to Akamai, their servers
provide enough throughput to support peak demand of the world’s 25 top Web
sites combined.
In the first week of May, Akamai reported to have served over one-quarter
billion hits per day and 350 megabits per second as an average during peak
hours. The extraordinary volume utilized 3 percent of Akamai’s total capacity.
ISPs simply permit Akamai to place their servers inside the carrier’s
point-of-presence and the participating ISP will cut bandwidth expenses and
improve performance for Internet access customers.
Akamai’s servers are complementary and non-intrusive to an ISP’s existing
infrastructure. An ISP’s routers, access concentrators, and caches improve
performance with FreeFlow because Akamai’s network only stores up-to-date
content.
Teleglobe reported that their servers
supporting access to a hundred ISPs in nearly as many countries have
benefited greatly from the added efficiency of the Akamai FreeFlow ISP
program.
“Teleglobe’s Globeinternet customers demand that we provide them with the
best price-performance for Internet connectivity,” said Bob Collet,
Vice-President and General Manager for Data Services at Teleglobe.
“With Akamai’s servers deployed throughout our global Internet backbone
network, we are able to offer our customers significantly improved access
to premium Web content and media.”
OzEmail, one of Australia leading
ISP’s has also benefited from adding Akamai’s FreeFlow servers to their
network.
“OzEmail loves Akamai’s ability to speed up access to popular content for
our Internet subscribers,” said David Spence, President and COO of OzEmail.
FreeFlow servers are built on a standard PC-based architecture running
Akamai’s proprietary software. Minimum requirements for an ISP to
participate in the FreeFlow program include DS3 connectivity to upstream
service providers and an environmentally controlled, secure facility.
“Akamai’s offer creates a win-win for content providers and ISPs,” noted
Jonathan Seelig, who oversees the Free Flow ISP program and is Akamai’s vice president
of strategy and corporate development.
“ISPs cut costs and speed the delivery of popular content for their
end-users while enabling Web site owners to maintain full control of their
content.”
Akamai, pronounced ah’kah’my is a Hawaiian word for intelligent and clever. Informally, Akamai means cool.
