CDNetworks Adds Telco Partners, Aims For the Hard Places

Korean-based CDNetworks announced a global channel program today aimed at extending its reach deeper into international destinations. Russia’s MegaFon and Japan’s KDDI have signed on and will deploy and sell the company’s CDN services within their networks, gaining a new revenue stream.  CDNetworks, meanwhile, will gain the benefit of all that infrastructure in those two key markets.  This is similar to the CDN operator’s deal a while back with the Turkish operator Dora, but with a renewed and expanded focus.

What CDNetworks is trying to do via this partner program is take its global CDN deeper into the harder to reach corners of the world – it already has its own facilities within mainland China for instance. So the telco partners they are looking for are those with assets that will get them further into markets in places like the Middle East and South America moreso than the US and Europe. That lets them gain scale without spending vast amounts of capex, and it lets their partners do the same without having to re-invent the wheel outside their territory.

Like most of its peers, CDNetworks has not yet jumped all the way on the CDN federation bandwagon.  But they do seem ready to move up from the basic resale deals of the past to more complicated and hopefully more fruitful relationships with network operators.

The relationship with KDDI is obviously going to be deep, given that KDDI just bought 85% of the company.  That will give them additional assets not just in Japan, but also in the US where there will be synergies with KDDI America and fellow subsidiary TELEHOUSE.  They have been rather quiet since they bought Panther Express, but the deep pockets of KDDI seem ready to power a new growth phase.

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