Teliasonera Plans to Join CDN Rush

Scandanavian incumbent carrier Teliasonera plans to enter the content delivery business with an announcement sometime next month, according to a report by Dan Rayburn.  While details are scarce, it looks like TeliaSonera AB (ETR:TLS, news, filings) will join British Telecom (NYSE:BT, news, filings) and AT&T (NYSE:T, news, filings) and build their own system rather than buy an existing CDN or partner with someone, although they may buy a video content management firm as part of the effort.

Teliasonera’s approach will be different from those of BT and DT because they run a top 10 IP backbone, the largest one of all European carriers.  While their incumbent territory of Sweden and Finland holds a limited number of eyeballs on its own, no carrier in Europe has last mile penetration across the continent.  What Teliasonera brings to the table is its European IP backbone, practically every ISP on the continent either peers directly with them or buys substantial IP transit from them so they are perhaps closer to the average European eyeball than anyone.  They have fiber throughout Europe, some of it picked up from KPNQwest after the bubble, and they have been working tirelessly to penetrate eastern Europe and Russia.  Following the assets, Teliasonera’s CDN will almost certainly be focused beyond its own eyeballs – it will be Euro-centric, whereas I think BT’s effort will be largely UK-centric.

The CDN space just keeps getting more crowded, take a look at this list.  Panther and CDNetworks may be joining forces, but consolidation is still looking much slower than new entries from the carrier space.  Who is next?  I don’t see how FT doesn’t make a move before long, although I expect they will do what DT did and partner with someone.  Telefonica perhaps?  I still look for Japanese incumbent NTT to make a move too sometime, their substantial IP and hosting presence in the US would seem to give them a leg up.

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Categories: Content Distribution · ILECs, PTTs · Telecom Equipment