Akamai announces that leading movie distribution companies rely on Akamai's global EdgePlatform to ensure high quality movie delivery experiences online. Akamai customers including EPIX, Netflix and Roxio CinemaNow are delivering HD quality movies on Akamai's uniquely distributed edge delivery network that is specifically tuned for optimal delivery of HD files online. Traffic across Akamai's network associated with the delivery of full-length feature films has seen triple digit growth since November 2009, which Akamai believes to represent not only an increase in consumer consumption, but more content being migrated onto its platform. Akamai's global network footprint and deep, category-specific experience delivering long-form, high definition video positions the company squarely to create tremendous value in this rapidly evolving market segment.

As the movie industry begins to make more of their movie libraries available digitally, a number of technology challenges emerge in order to deliver the highest-quality possible experience online, including:

• Smooth Playback - Ensuring that feature length movies play back uninterrupted in their entirety despite unpredictable and fluctuating Internet connections;
• Highest Bitrates - Allowing for high-throughput Internet connections whether downloading or streaming large files. Because distance decreases available throughput, movie files need to be delivered very close to where content is accessed and to support primetime level viewing audiences at high bitrates would require 100 Tbps of scalability; and,
• Interactivity - Offering interactive content, social media and shopping experiences, that create heavy load on the Internet and require frequent round-trips back to databases or site servers, while keeping performance and download wait times low.

On the business side, content owners need:

• Security – technology that can reliably protect high value digital content from being inappropriately accessed; and,
• Analytics – to quickly and easily understand exactly how movies are being consumed and through which partners.

Numerous industry studies have shown that without meeting the challenges noted above, online audiences will become impatient, tune out, and find premium HD content that works elsewhere. Inherent in the value of the Akamai HD Network and EdgePlatform is the ability to deliver full-length feature films at up to full 1080p HD resolution, provide an engaging user experience, security features for protecting content, and detailed audience analytics for tracking engagement. Leveraging Akamai's global footprint of more than 61,000 servers for instant scalability and highest throughput, a key feature of the Akamai HD Network is adaptive bit rate technology that automatically adapts to a user's fluctuating Internet conditions to enable smooth playback and improved viewing experiences.

In addition, Akamai's proprietary acceleration technologies are designed to dramatically speed up dynamic transactions and accelerate applications, which is critical to enabling the new social experiences possible through BluRay Live as well as storefronts and other dynamic content that needs to run over the Internet. The Akamai HD Network offers multiple security measures, which can be used for protecting premium media such as films, including authentication, geographic blocking, player verification, transport encryption and is compatible with industry-leading DRM technologies.

With traditional movie distribution models, there is a longer consumer reaction and feedback timeline. With broadband delivery, the distributor is connected to the consumer in real time, and the additional data points this results in are invaluable to studios and distribution partners alike. Akamai Media Analytics, part of the Akamai HD Network, is designed to give online movie distribution companies vast amounts of interactive, consumer behavior data in real time. Using Akamai Media Analytics, studios create a feedback loop, which is full of rich online data allowing them to make precise and data-driven product development and feature enhancement decisions, entirely based on consumer insight.

Consumer appetites are growing as access to premium content continues and as a result, consumption patterns are increasing. According to a February 2010 ComScore Video Metrix report**, online video views grew from 14.8 billion in January 2009 to 33.2 billion in December 2009. A June 2009 PriceWaterhouseCoopers report*** projected that online rental subscriptions will reach $4.5B in 2013 and digital downloads will grow from $253M in 2008 to $753M in 2013.