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Ouch! That Hurts! The page-five caption reads, "Akamai's CDN services weren't worth the price, say Scott Thompson and Julie Webster of ABCNews.com." It doesn't get much more negative than this blurb in InternetWeek.
The article goes on to suggest that carrier-provided CDN services are less expensive than the dedicated commercial CDNs, such as Akamai, and that the standalone CDNs may be acquired or otherwise disappear. "Akamai's high prices have caused ABCNews.com to switch to Digital Island...Sources say Akamai sells bandwidth at 10 times the prices of carriers."
Something's wrong here. The only reasons for such a price differential must be due to an imbalance in supply/demand or other temporary conditions. Web-hosting services are 9I believe) selling services below cost in order to attract customers to their empty data centers and underutilized pipes. At the same time, Akamai has costs that are increasing as they continue to grow their infrastructure. Ultimately, the economics of delivery via a CDN should turn out to be better. The question is, can the CDNs survive until realistic costs and price return to the market?
Posted Saturday, October 13, 2001 12:07:07 PM 
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