Content delivery network, Akamai Technologies, has announced expansion plans for the Indian market. The company, which claims to have crossed 100 customers in the country, is opening offices in New Delhi and Mumbai. Besides, enabling the company to have customer-facing operations, the new offices will offer new solutions and capabilities to clients, according to the company. Note that the company already has an office in Bangalore, and its second largest network center. Akamai informed that it had signed up new customers including the Bombay Stock Exchange, and online bus ticketing platform, RedBus. Last year, the company had signed SnapDeal, DealsAndYou and FashionAndYou. It also partnered with ESPNStar for live streaming the ICC Cricket World Cup. Publishers use Content Delivery Networks to provide a consistent speed and faster speeds of access (and hence advertising delivery) to consumers, apart from providing alternate routes for access, in case any particular series of links goes down. CDN’s provide an optimized peering arrangement, bypassing peer-to-peer commercial arrangements between ISPs, which tend to be optimised for cost, not speed of content delivery. Other CDNs Akamai competes with other CDNs including Bitgravity, which was acquired by Tata Communications, last year, and Limelight, which had inked a partnership with Indian telecom major Bharti Airtel in 2010. Limelight's clients include Punjab Kesari, Rajshri.com , among others.
