Limelight Networks exceeds 2-Tbit/sec global capacity

OCTOBER 16, 2008 -- Limelight Networks Inc. (search for Limelight Networks) today announced that its global content delivery capacity has exceeded two Tbits/sec.

Two terabits/sec is roughly the raw capacity required to deliver content to the equivalent of four Nielsen ratings points of audience, says the company. Even taking network overhead into account, this milestone means Limelight's capacity could support delivering broadcast-quality content to over two million simultaneous Internet users.

A 'broadcast quantity' content delivery network (CDN) meets the challenge of maintaining high fidelity for every piece of content delivered, even as the audience that could potentially view that content grows significantly, note LimeLight representatives. Recently, comScore reported that more than 142 million U.S. Internet users watched 11.4 billion videos for a total duration of 558 million hours during July 2008, and 27.4 million U.K. Internet users watched 3.2 billion videos for an average of 117.7 videos per viewer during June 2008.

"As global traffic and audience numbers continue to grow, the challenge for delivery networks has changed from delivering a single piece of content to an audience of millions, to simultaneously delivering a million different pieces of content to a million different viewers," explains Jim Davis, senior analyst at Tier 1 Research. "Viewers' expectations are defined by their experience from broadcast TV, so delivery networks are being called on to deliver ever higher levels of visual fidelity. These services are more engaging for viewers, and this in turn helps monetize the content."

Limelight Networks' approach to maximizing the delivery of content is to store a publisher's entire content library logically close to the end user, so content is delivered without traversing the congested public Internet. This is accomplished by directly connecting over eight petabytes of storage to over 900 last mile access networks, through a fiber-optic connection maintained by the company. The end result is a brilliant user experience for every element of content delivered, says the company.

"This milestone of two terabits per second of network capacity represents the beginning of a new era in the content delivery industry," asserts Nathan Raciborskim, CTO of LimeLight Networks. "While Limelight Networks' architecture has always ensured a broadcast quality experience, today's milestone demonstrates that we can deliver broadcast quantity entertainment--thousands of programs to global Internet audiences that are measurable in Nielson ratings points. As more viewers use the web as a primary entertainment vehicle, we will continue to scale and expand our architecture to ensure these broadcast quantity audiences receive engaging, high-quality experiences," he adds.

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