15 September 2006

Akamai and network neutrality

I came across this article in BusinessWeek about Akamai. As I read it, I began wondering about the practical side of "net neut*", about which I had posted earlier (follow this link). While I know this is a topic on people's minds, there has been relatively little discussion about it over the past couple of months -- perhaps because of the Congressional recess.

Does the deeper insight into Internet service provision enrich your position on this topic? Do you think that Akamai (and/or Google) would be in a position to construct an alternate backbone if they find AT&T's (or Verizon's) pricing unacceptable (that is, do we see echoes of the Western Union/Associated Press here? Does this change the debate for you, especially regarding the appropriate role of government?

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In the Internet world, of course, it is quite hard to achieve a good quality of service for video streaming. That is why there is a gap for some players acting as Internet Data Center like Akamia that are plumbing the streaming for content providers like Google, Apple.

Response to the question, personally, it is a big issue for Akamai to construct their own backbone which is required the permission of the rights of way and huge investment on network infrastructure. Yet, it would be a good alternative for the customers though.

I,m still thinking about if they can merge together and let AT&T/Verizon only acting as the network providers and Akamia/Google merely serving as the content provider. I could see the reverberation of WU/AP.