Industry Overview

IP-based streaming, caching and broadcasting technologies have been in existence for several years, however, their widespread application by enterprises, and the concept of outsourcing them as a service to third parties only began to gain commercial acceptance in the U.S. during the year 2000/2001.

A number of new network operators have taken the iniciative to build specialized Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), primarily in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

By replicating and delivering all types of content and streaming media from the "edge" of the Internet (closer to the viewers or recipients of the content), and by utilizing reliable state-of-the-art transmission, replication, acceleration and redirection technologies, these service providers have been able to address the problems related to media and application distribution and thereby deliver a superior product and service.

These "edge" points are located in the world's largest cities, where the largest enterprises conduct most of their day-to-day business, and where the majority of their employees, business partners and customers are also located.

The delivered product is superior in quality, since is delivered from a nearby "local" content distributor. In addition, this distributed infrastructure can handle a large number of viewers in a manner that is resilient to network failures in a economical and effective way.