Verizon Cuts IP Backbone Prices for Content-Delivery Networks

Verizon announced significant price cuts for connecting content owners like online movie services, as well as content delivery network providers (CDNs) to its Internet backbone network.


The new pricing initiative - the Verizon Partner Port Program - gives content owners and CDNs the benefit of a direct connection from their content storage devices to the Verizon Internet backbone network. This allows content owners and CDNs to bypass the traditional backbone peering process, which involves multicarrier delivery systems, when delivering content to the broadband end users on Verizon's network.


The specific rates and charges for each customer will be determined based on various factors including the number and location of the customer's connections, customer's total bandwidth commitment (as well as the bandwidth commitment at each location) and the traffic ratio profile. Connections can be made directly onto the Verizon Internet backbone network at regional carrier "hotels" without the need for connections that use longer, less direct and often costly middlemen architectures that involve multiple connections, or "hops," among multiple carriers. This should ensure lower latency for the broadband end customers on Verizon's networks.


"We have built one of the most robust networks in the marketplace and are providing a pricing structure that moves content providers and CDNs beyond traditional delivery systems to a model that taps that capacity in the best interest of broadband customers," said Quintin Lew, senior vice president of Verizon Partner Solutions, the company's wholesale services division.


Verizon also noted its ongoing work to improve the efficiency of content delivered over the Internet through a new turnkey content-delivery network managed by Velocix, which improves consumer video delivery. Verizon is also supporting peer-to-peer file transfers using the P4P Working Group's network efficiency model, which improves the efficiency of content transmission by reducing the number of "hops" content must travel before delivery to the end user. The new P4P Working Group solution, now awaiting formal standards adoption, uses information about the design of networks to deliver content more efficiently from local sources rather than from distant storage sites, lowering long-haul network traffic and helping to control associated costs.
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