In a recent announcement, cloud platform provider Akamai Technologies and bigwig US carrier AT&T revealed that they have worked out a "global strategic alliance" to provide new content delivery network (CDN) and telecom solutions to business all over the world.

The announcement about the Akamai/AT&T team up comes at a time when demand for video and other large loads of content has ramped up across networks. The partnership between the two companies will essentially cater to the businesses' need for speedier access and ownership for digital video, web-based apps, and other assets which are in high demand as well as high volume.

As a result of the team up, Akamai's content delivery platform will be amalgamated with AT&T's IP network; with the new suite of CDN solutions to be marketed, managed and backed jointly by both the companies.

The partnership agreement will have AT&T transfer its current CDN operations, customers and service to the Akamai platform from 2013 onwards; while Akamai will begin the deployment of its servers at the edge of AT&T's IP network, and also within AT&T facilities, all across the US.

Noting that the "powerful relationship" resulting from the Akamai/AT&T alliance will chiefly help enterprises in optimizing their online businesses, Akamai's President and CEO Paul Sagan said that the two companies "share a common goal of developing solutions to maximize the Web and mobile end user experience, while driving down network-related costs and improving network efficiencies."