BT Ignite Content Hosting and Akamai Form Strategic Relationship for Global Internet Content Delivery

Business Wire, Nov 16, 2000

Business/Technology Editors

LONDON and CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 16, 2000

-- Akamai to deploy FreeFlow(SM) and FreeFlow(SM) Streaming servers throughout
BT Ignite Content Hosting's extensive network

-- BT Ignite Content Hosting to resell Akamai's content delivery services to
its hosting customer base

-- Companies plan to work towards interconnecting their respective content
delivery networks

BT Ignite Content Hosting, the hosting arm of BT's International broadband Internet Protocol (IP) business, and Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM) today announced a strategic relationship in which BT Ignite Content Hosting and Akamai will work closely to market and promote extensive Internet content delivery services.

Under the agreement, Akamai will deploy its FreeFlow(SM) and FreeFlow(SM) Streaming servers throughout BT Ignite Content Hosting's extensive backbone and broadband network. In addition, effective immediately, BT Ignite Content Hosting will be offering Akamai's content delivery services to its customers on a reseller basis. The companies also plan to collaborate to overcome the complexities of interconnecting BT Ignite Content Hosting's content delivery network and Akamai's global content delivery network to maximize performance for end users on the Internet.

Vernon Irvin, president of BT Ignite Content Hosting, said, "We are delighted with this partnership because of Akamai's proven technology and leadership in the creation of content delivery services and their value to our customers. By working together with Akamai towards a bi-lateral content exchange relationship, we will be able to offer our respective customers superior content delivery applications and services."

"We are very pleased to be working so closely with BT, an industry leader in the development of today's telecommunications services and IT solutions," said George Conrades, chairman and CEO of Akamai. "BT has a long history of producing cutting-edge research and has deployed a massive network in Europe and beyond. This partnership with BT Ignite Content Hosting is going to substantially improve the Internet experience for European content providers and their end users. We look forward to working together to develop additional value-added services related to a bi-lateral content exchange relationship with BT Ignite Content Hosting."

BT Ignite Content Hosting and Akamai plan to work on the complexities of allowing the interoperability between the Akamai and BT content delivery networks. The primary focus of these efforts would be aimed at enabling the delivery of a complete service including reporting, control, fault tolerance, QoS, streaming, and second-generation services such as dynamic content generation to a large base of content providers.

About Akamai

Akamai is the leading Content Delivery Service Provider (CDSP) serving over 2,800 customers worldwide. Akamai has the broadest deployment of servers for content, streaming media, and applications delivery with more than 6,000 servers in 54 countries directly connected within 335 different telecommunications networks.

About BT Ignite

BT Ignite - BT's international broadband and Internet Protocol (IP) solutions business has been created to provide a complete communications portfolio to corporate and wholesale customers anywhere in the world.

It is the first global organisation to commit to delivering the entire IP value chain - from core networks and internet connectivity through to e-commerce consultancy and solutions with a unique blend of content hosting, application service provision, systems integration and outsourcing capabilities.

BT Ignite is already outstripping its nearest competitors in terms of traditional measures of route kilometres, number of hosting centres, local sales and service support teams and depth of country coverage. In Europe we already have twice the broadband reach of our competitors and, through an aggressive 3 year, (pound)4 billion investment programme, will be able to deliver our portfolio to over 250 European cities over our own networks by the end of 2001 and to all the worlds' commercial centres through BT's international alliances and partnerships.

About BT Ignite Content Hosting

BT Ignite Content Hosting offers a range of web hosting application and networking services, utilising a world class Internet backbone. The data centres can service a wide range of companies from major corporations to application service providers and other Internet-centric businesses.

Internet data centres house the hardware, software and high speed communication connections required by customers - allowing them to focus on their core business and meet growing requirements for e-commerce.

Akamai Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act

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 failure of Akamai's services, including FreeFlow and FreeFlow Streaming, to achieve commercial success or viability, the failure of either Akamai or BT Ignite to reach an agreement and/or implement a plan to interconnect their respective content delivery networks or develop additional value-added services, 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.