Speedera Service Helps Launch Content-Delivery NetworksSpeedera Service Helps Launch Content-Delivery Networks

Co-location and hosting companies are eager to supply more profitable content-delivery services, and Speedera Networks Inc. on Monday will introduce a service designed to make that as easy as possible. Speedera's Fusion partner program provides tools and services that let its customers quickly roll out a content-delivery network. By making it possible for its customers to integrate their own points of presence (POPs) with those on other networks, thereby creating a virtual global network, Speedera hopes to give its customers more control.

Essentially, companies that participate in the Fusion program will be able to piggyback on their competitors' networks via the POPs Speedera has set up in service providers' data centers around the world. Speedera's customers also will have access to traffic-balancing tools that will let them dictate how much content remains on their own network and how much is routed through Speedera's network of service providers. That should make it possible for hosting companies to provide their customers with services they previously had to secure from another vendor. "What the hosters want to do is control the customer relationship so they can sell the services," Speedera VP Gordon Smith says.

Philip Levinson, VP and general manager of Globix Corp.'s EarthCache division, says Speedera's Fusion program is making it possible for Globix to expand the streaming service it launched this spring into a full-blown content-delivery network. Levinson says Globix doesn't plan to tap into the Speedera network, but that no other vendor could match the Fusion program's quick deployment, wide range of premium sellable services, and ability to closely monitor the flow of content across the Globix network. "The combination of technologies, interface tools, and time to market we deemed to be second to none," Levinson says.

HTRC Group analyst Greg Howard says Globix's enthusiasm represents a healthy endorsement of the Fusion program. Howard says the program opens new doors in providing content-delivery-network services by cost-effectively combining streaming, which has been prohibitively expensive, with caching. "It's certainly one attractive option for service providers looking to get into this market," says Howard, though he also points out that companies that commit to the program will find it difficult and expensive to change directions later.

The cost of the services, however, pales in comparison to the expense of building out a content-delivery network: Global content-delivery bandwidth starts at $1,795 a month for each megabit per second, and related traffic-balancing services start at $2,000 a month.