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Yankee Group: Carriers Will Gobble Up CDNs

The Yankee Group says telecom carriers like AT&T, British Telecom and Verizon are good candidates to acquire content delivery networks.

Telecom carriers like AT&T, British Telecom and Verizon are good candidates to acquire content delivery networks (CDNs) in coming months, according to analyst David Vorhaus of The Yankee Group. Vorhaus tells Telephony Online that the emergence of new players in the CDN industry creates both challenges and opportunities for the large telcos. While AT&T is building its own CDN infrastructure, it may turn out to be faster and cheaper to buy rather than build:

"No service provider is going to be able to come in and build this sort of capacity right off the bat just because they are AT&T or Verizon," Vorhaus said. "That's why Level 3 bought a CDN company (actually Savvis' CDN network). And it makes a lot of sense for AT&T, Verizon, BT or even Level 3 to buy one of the many CDN companies out there now."

Vorhaus sees Limelight Networks (LLNW) as a target, with the telcos looming as likelier buyers than Akamai (AKAM) or Level 3 (LVLT).