Financial Crisis Drives Global Internet Traffic

CAMBRIDGE, Mass -- In the midst of this extraordinary financial and political news cycle, online media consumption has been breaking traffic records.  As consumption is up, so is demand for bandwidth from big content delivery networks like Akamai. 

Akamai, which carries Internet traffic for NBC, the BBC, Reuters and others, had a spike of 7 percent in normal traffic at the close of the trading in New York today.  The company registered 3.7 million requests for pages per minute. 

Last month, I visited the world headquarters of Akamai in Cambridge, Mass. for a visit. Suzanne Johnson, Senior Industry Marketing Manager for Digital Media, provided a demo of the Akamai globe which registered the demands for sites in real time.  The points of light are the locations were Akamai has its servers.

Despite the tech stock bloodbath today, Akamai's stock went up slightly.

-- Andy Plesser, Executive Producer