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C-SPAN and Akamai Announce First-Ever Live, Gavel-To-Gavel Streaming Media Coverage of Both Democratic and Republican Conventions
Both conventions will be accessible live via the Internet at www.c-span.org or through any other Web properties that sign up for the C-SPAN feed. Akamai's FreeFlow Streaming network will provide the exclusive delivery of all syndicated content.
For the first time, C-SPAN has agreed to be the primary source of television coverage for all news media at the Democratic and Republican conventions. The C-SPAN/Akamai agreement calls for C-SPAN to transmit its live video from the floor of the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia (July 31 - August 3), and the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles (August 14 - 17). With the use of Akamai's FreeFlow Streaming content delivery service, C-SPAN.org users will experience high quality, live streaming of both conventions.
C-SPAN.org will also offer an online exclusive: Visitors can watch the produced coverage, live from the convention floor, select their own shots from any of three cameras on the floor, or watch over the director's shoulder as the television feed is created.
By making its broadcast feeds available to other Web portals around the world, C-SPAN's syndication strategy helps expand the reach of its political programming, as well as represents the debut of real-time, syndicated online coverage of political conventions.
"This is a first for C-SPAN's national political coverage: using Akamai's Internet content delivery technology and C-SPAN's gavel-to-gavel convention telecasts to broaden access to the political process," said Rob Kennedy, C-SPAN's Executive Vice President. "We hope this use of today's leading technology greatly enhances the ability for even more people to stay informed and participate in the political process."
Mr. Kennedy noted that Akamai's FreeFlow Streaming technology will deliver the convention coverage to Web users in a reliable and scalable way at any Internet speed. "The decision to stream live the two major national political conventions required us to use a technology that factors in various Internet speed connections as well as the potential for Web congestion," said Kennedy.
Since the last national political conventions in 1996, Internet usage in the U.S. has grown from 36.8 million individual users, representing 14 percent of U.S. population, to over 115.6 million users currently in the year 2000, representing 42 percent of U.S. population (source: Jupiter Communications).
"We are excited to be playing an important role in both C-SPAN's expansion of their live political programming to the Web, as well as their syndication of content. It is events like these in which the Internet can become a vital tool to helping keep viewers as informed as possible," said Dan Fraisl, vice president and general manager, streaming media group, Akamai. "Akamai's streaming technology and expansive network continue to attract live events that have the potential for successfully reaching massive audiences, while delivering high-quality streaming to keep visitors engaged."
Akamai's FreeFlow Streaming service is built upon the Company's EdgeAdvantageTM platform that uses sophisticated algorithms to monitor the Internet on a real-time basis, understand the location of the requesting user, and make intelligent decisions about the best and most efficient Akamai edge server from which to deliver content to the end user. The FreeFlow Streaming service incorporates Akamai's proprietary SteadyStreamSM technology that sends multiple copies of the same stream to the edges of the Internet and then recombines the streams into the original high-quality format.
About C-SPAN
Since 1979, C-SPAN has provided the nation with gavel-to-gavel coverage of important political events. C-SPAN was a creation of the cable television industry, which provides funding for C-SPAN operations as a public service. Currently available in 77 million cable and satellite homes, C-SPAN is offering extensive coverage of its fifth presidential election. A hallmark of C-SPAN coverage is comprehensive coverage of all political parties. This year, as in the past, C-SPAN will also televise the Reform, Libertarian, and Green parties' nominating conventions.
About Akamai
Akamai is the foremost provider of distributed content, streaming media, and applications delivery services, serving over 1000 customers. Akamai has deployed the broadest global network for content, streaming media, and applications delivery with more than 3,000 servers in over 45 countries directly connected to more than 150 different telecommunications networks. Akamai (pronounced AH kuh my) is Hawaiian for intelligent, clever and cool.
The release contains information about future expectations, plans and prospects of Akamai's management that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors including, but not limited to, the dependence on Akamai's Internet content delivery service, a failure of its network infrastructure, the complexity of its service and the networks on which the service is deployed, the failure to obtain access to transmission capacity and other factors that are discussed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and other documents periodically filed with the SEC.
| Contacts: |
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| Caryn Converse Akamai Technologies 617-250-4661 converse@akamai.com |
--or-- | Erika Robinson C-SPAN 202-626-8904 erobinsn@c-span.org |
C-SPAN develops unique syndication model for providing convention coverage to interested Web properties; Akamai to enable delivery of all streaming content
CAMBRIDGE, MA, and WASHINGTON, DC - June 29, 2000 - Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM) and C-SPAN announced today a strategic initiative to produce live streaming media from the Republican and Democratic national conventions, and to syndicate the content for use by other interested Web properties. The agreement marks the first-ever gavel-to-gavel and live webcasts of the major parties' national political conventions, enabling both parties to open the doors to a truly global online audience. Akamai has been selected to provide C-SPAN with the end-to-end solution for streaming audio and video including both production and encoding capabilities, as well as the delivery of the live Web broadcast across the Akamai global network using the FreeFlowSM Streaming service.Both conventions will be accessible live via the Internet at www.c-span.org or through any other Web properties that sign up for the C-SPAN feed. Akamai's FreeFlow Streaming network will provide the exclusive delivery of all syndicated content.
For the first time, C-SPAN has agreed to be the primary source of television coverage for all news media at the Democratic and Republican conventions. The C-SPAN/Akamai agreement calls for C-SPAN to transmit its live video from the floor of the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia (July 31 - August 3), and the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles (August 14 - 17). With the use of Akamai's FreeFlow Streaming content delivery service, C-SPAN.org users will experience high quality, live streaming of both conventions.
C-SPAN.org will also offer an online exclusive: Visitors can watch the produced coverage, live from the convention floor, select their own shots from any of three cameras on the floor, or watch over the director's shoulder as the television feed is created.
By making its broadcast feeds available to other Web portals around the world, C-SPAN's syndication strategy helps expand the reach of its political programming, as well as represents the debut of real-time, syndicated online coverage of political conventions.
"This is a first for C-SPAN's national political coverage: using Akamai's Internet content delivery technology and C-SPAN's gavel-to-gavel convention telecasts to broaden access to the political process," said Rob Kennedy, C-SPAN's Executive Vice President. "We hope this use of today's leading technology greatly enhances the ability for even more people to stay informed and participate in the political process."
Mr. Kennedy noted that Akamai's FreeFlow Streaming technology will deliver the convention coverage to Web users in a reliable and scalable way at any Internet speed. "The decision to stream live the two major national political conventions required us to use a technology that factors in various Internet speed connections as well as the potential for Web congestion," said Kennedy.
Since the last national political conventions in 1996, Internet usage in the U.S. has grown from 36.8 million individual users, representing 14 percent of U.S. population, to over 115.6 million users currently in the year 2000, representing 42 percent of U.S. population (source: Jupiter Communications).
"We are excited to be playing an important role in both C-SPAN's expansion of their live political programming to the Web, as well as their syndication of content. It is events like these in which the Internet can become a vital tool to helping keep viewers as informed as possible," said Dan Fraisl, vice president and general manager, streaming media group, Akamai. "Akamai's streaming technology and expansive network continue to attract live events that have the potential for successfully reaching massive audiences, while delivering high-quality streaming to keep visitors engaged."
Akamai's FreeFlow Streaming service is built upon the Company's EdgeAdvantageTM platform that uses sophisticated algorithms to monitor the Internet on a real-time basis, understand the location of the requesting user, and make intelligent decisions about the best and most efficient Akamai edge server from which to deliver content to the end user. The FreeFlow Streaming service incorporates Akamai's proprietary SteadyStreamSM technology that sends multiple copies of the same stream to the edges of the Internet and then recombines the streams into the original high-quality format.
About C-SPAN
Since 1979, C-SPAN has provided the nation with gavel-to-gavel coverage of important political events. C-SPAN was a creation of the cable television industry, which provides funding for C-SPAN operations as a public service. Currently available in 77 million cable and satellite homes, C-SPAN is offering extensive coverage of its fifth presidential election. A hallmark of C-SPAN coverage is comprehensive coverage of all political parties. This year, as in the past, C-SPAN will also televise the Reform, Libertarian, and Green parties' nominating conventions.
About Akamai
Akamai is the foremost provider of distributed content, streaming media, and applications delivery services, serving over 1000 customers. Akamai has deployed the broadest global network for content, streaming media, and applications delivery with more than 3,000 servers in over 45 countries directly connected to more than 150 different telecommunications networks. Akamai (pronounced AH kuh my) is Hawaiian for intelligent, clever and cool.
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The release contains information about future expectations, plans and prospects of Akamai's management that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors including, but not limited to, the dependence on Akamai's Internet content delivery service, a failure of its network infrastructure, the complexity of its service and the networks on which the service is deployed, the failure to obtain access to transmission capacity and other factors that are discussed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and other documents periodically filed with the SEC.
