Verizon plans to acquire CDN provider

US operator Verizon has announced plans to acquire content delivery network provider EdgeCast. The boards of directors of both firms have approved the acquisition and hope to finalise the deal early 2014. The value of the deal was not disclosed.

The operator, through its Digital Media Services arm, plans to acquire EdgeCast to enhance its video delivery and web services capabilities. It said it will integrate EdgeCast’s capabilities in a bid to satisfy the expected exponential growth in online digital media content consumption. According to Verizon, EdgeCast has more than 6,000 active customers.

“The combination of EdgeCast and Verizon Digital Media Services will allow us to fully exploit and accelerate growth in internet media consumption and online business performance,” said Bob Toohey, president of Verizon Digital Media Services.

Earlier this year, Verizon Digital Media Services announced the acquisition of upLynk assets; technology that “streamlines the process of uploading and encoding of video for live, linear and video-on-demand content”, according to the operator. It added that the combination of capabilities from Verizon, upLynk and EdgeCast enables Verizon Digital Media Services to offer end-to-end services.

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