"The alliance with Akamai positions us perfectly to deliver premier content delivery solutions to our business customers," said Andy Geisse, Chief Executive Officer, AT&T Business Solutions said in a statement about the endeavor. "By embedding Akamai's technology within AT&T's IP network, our customers now have access to a suite of solutions that more than meet their need for content delivery and support. In an environment where companies and consumers alike are accessing video content and other applications online and from a multitude of devices, I can't think of a better way to address the explosive growth in content that is sweeping across industries like media and retail."

By working with Akamai, which handles CDN across the larger internet, AT&T gets a technology partner that's road tested and experienced at handling large volume video traffic.

"Aligning Akamai's services with the global reach, scale and product depth of AT&T creates a powerful relationship aimed at helping enterprises optimize their online businesses," said Paul Sagan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Akamai. "Together with AT&T, we share a common goal of developing solutions to maximize the Web and mobile end user experience, while driving down network-related costs and improving network efficiencies. We believe there will be tremendous value to customers in deploying within AT&T's robust IP network, and in jointly going to market with leading content delivery and cloud infrastructure offerings."

Akamai also works with other operators around the globe including Turk Telekom. Rostelecom partnered with Ericsson to launch its own self-described “world's largest operator CDN” in Sept. 2013 in Russia. Verizon decided straight acquisition was the best approach and announced in Dec. 2013 that it was acquiring EdgeCast Networks, an established CDN solutions provider to boost the Verizon Digital Media Services offerings.

“As part of the internet infrastructure, CDNs are in a critically important position. They control a considerable portion of internet traffic traveling around the global and their role has evolved into one of the 'stewards of the internet,'” James Segil, chief marketing officer for Verizon Digital Media Services says. “It's partly Verizon's responsibility to help scale the internet--not just for our own network, but as part of the broader ecosystem of web properties, backbone networks, ISPs and web-enabled end users.”

NFV and CDNs

CDNs, once a clunky appliance, are now servers running software. CDNs also happen to sit on the edge of the network, providing an opportune entry point into network functions virtualization (NFV). Childs adds that his company is embracing virtualization and NFV and thinks it presents some interesting opportunities for operators.

“CDN is often where it (NFV) starts,” Childs says. “Once they have success with the CDN, operators start to wonder what other applications can become tenants on that NFV system.”