Akamai Traffic Tops 200 Gigabits Per Second

Total traffic on the Akamai network last week peaked for the first time at a rate of more than 200 gigabits per second, boosted by webcasts of NCAA tournament games via CBS Sportsline. On Thursday, Akamai served Web content for more than 102 billion Internet requests, with a peak rate of 2,311,821 requests per second - a rate roughly equivalent to serving content to the entire population of Chicago simultaneously. Last Thursday Akamai served more than 400,000 simultaneous video streams in Microsoft's Windows Media Format. Akamai served similar demand again on Friday.

"This is incredibly significant because it means we are witnessing the maturity of the Internet as the premiere medium for the consumption of time-sensitive content, including sports, news and music programming, delivered to broadband-connected users worldwide," said Paul Sagan, Akamai's President and CEO. "Akamai's broadly distributed on-demand capabilities are enabling the emergence of entire new online business models for information, entertainment, advertising and commerce."

"The Internet is the new platform for record-setting media events and content delivery, and Akamai and Microsoft are together delivering the performance the market demands," said Kevin Unangst, director of Windows Digital Media at Microsoft Corporation. "The high quality, unmatched scalability, and broad reach of Windows Media, combined with Akamai's unparalleled capabilities, make it a world-class choice for the most demanding delivery scenarios."