Good News For Big CDN Users, Bad News For CDNs: Prices Dropping

Good News For Big CDN Users, Bad News For CDNs: Prices Dropping

Digital video companies and media conglomerates: Good news if you're shopping for a little (or a lot) of content delivery services.

Pricing dropped significantly during Q3 for some of the middle-of-the-road (250 terabytes transferred/month) and larger (1000 TB/mo.) video delivery customers during the quarter, according to survey results published by industry analyst Dan Rayburn. Some highlights:

• The biggest drop in pricing came for relatively smaller volume customers -- 250 TB/mo. -- where CDNs apparently courted them with cheap rates. Average pricing ranged from 20 cents to 35 cents per gigabyte delivered in Q3, down from the range of 40 cents to 55 cents per gigabyte delivered in Q2.
  
• The next-biggest drop came for very high-volume customers -- 1000 TB/mo. -- where rates ranged between 2.5 cents to 10 cents per gigabyte delivered in Q3, mostly down from the range of 4 cents to 9 cents per gigabyte delivered in Q2.
• Service pricing for mid-to-high-level customers, in the 500-750 TB/mo. range, stayed about the same.
  

Also noted: Limelight Networks (LLNW) was the "most aggressive with regards to price" while industry leader (by market share) Akamai Technologies (AKAM) was "coming in at almost double" to rival quotes. But what we don't know: Who won which deals at which prices -- and what this all means for Akamai or Limelight's Q3 results.