Akamai Shares Rally Following Global Strategic Alliance with AT&T

Akamai

shares up 9% after the open following news of a deal with AT&T

. AT&T is combining Akamai's industry leading content delivery platform with its world-renowned IP network to deliver to companies an exclusive suite of global CDN and telecom solutions that will be jointly marketed, managed and supported by the two companies. The companies will initially focus their efforts in North America, with plans to expand globally within 12 months. The alliance with Akamai represents the latest milestone in AT&T's strategy to deliver innovative solutions needed by companies that have seen explosive growth in the use of video and other content, both within their operations and by the end users they serve.  Driven by explosive growth in digital media, organizations are designing high-performing networking solutions that produce quality, on-demand results. CDN solutions from AT&T and Akamai will help enterprises simplify content distribution management and drive higher-performing end user experiences for consumers accessing content on the Internet.     Under the terms of the agreement, Akamai will deploy CDN servers at the edge of AT&T's IP network and in AT&T facilities throughout the United States. With the deployment of Akamai's CDN infrastructure within AT&T's network infrastructure, end customers are expected to benefit from more efficient content routing and better delivery of digital content, video and Web applications, resulting in a better end-user experience. AT&T will transfer its existing CDN operations, customers and service to the Akamai platform in 2013. The companies have also agreed to dedicate shared resources including technical support, customer care, marketing and professional services support.