• Qwilt has brokered partnerships with network operators around the world that have deployed its open caching technology in their edge content delivery nodes 
• Its tech is already installed in more than 900 network edge points of presence (PoPs) globally  
• Now it has struck a deal with Cirion, the former Lumen Technologies operation in Latin America
• Qwilt is installing its open caching technology in 15 Cirion PoPs

Content delivery network (CDN) technology specialist Qwilt has expanded its presence in Latin America through a partnership with Cirion Technologies, the former Lumen Technologies operation in Latin America (LatAm), that takes the number of points of presence (PoPs) running Qwilt’s Open Edge Cloud technology in the region to 113. 

Qwilt has been building its international network of more than 900 CDN PoPs by striking partnerships with network operators for years, building a global presence through relationships with companies such as Vodafone, Telefónica, Bharti Airtel, BT, Verizon and many more. The company doesn’t provide services direct to end users itself: Instead it strikes deals with network operators and media companies that want enhanced edge content delivery capabilities to be able to better deliver video, application and other services to their customers. To do so, they use Qwilt’s technology, which runs on hardware from Qwilt investor Cisco. Qwilt then stitches together the customer/partner PoPs with its cloud services and software to match requests for content delivery with the edge delivery nodes that are closest to the end users making those requests – essentially acting as a CDN aggregator. 

It uses that capability to broker relationships between media companies/content owners – with Disney+ being its marquee streaming content client – and its network operator partners, enabling a ‘value chain’ that is increasingly relevant as cloud-based international content delivery becomes a bigger part of consumers’ and enterprises’ lives and operations.     

For more on Qwilt, how its platform works, and what it means for service providers, see Disaggregating video delivery via the edge and Cache rich: Why telcos weave Qwilt into their networks. 

In LatAm it had already installed its technology in 98 network nodes through partnerships with the likes of Telecom Argentina, TIM Brazil and others.

Now Qwilt has expanded its presence in Latin America to 113 PoPs by striking a new partnership with Cirion – the former LatAm operations of US enterprise-focused operator Lumen Technologies that were acquired by infrastructure investment firm Stonepeak in 2022 – to install its technology in 15 nodes located in multiple markets, including Mexico, Brazil, Panama, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Argentina. 

Cirion will deploy Qwilt’s open caching in its content delivery nodes, which are well connected with high-speed optical network connections. Cirion boasts more than 50,000km of terrestrial long-haul and metropolitan fibre lines, 36,000km of submarine cables and 18 landing stations for international links, infrastructure that enables the reception and dissemination of bandwidth-hungry content with predictable quality-of-service (QoS) levels. 

According to Qwilt, the relationship will result in “higher quality live streaming, video-on-demand (VoD) and all other forms of media delivery for over 600 million consumers across all of Latin America.” 

Alon Maor, Qwilt’s CEO, noted: “Cirion is an exciting addition to our global ecosystem of service providers, and we are delighted to help power a unique content delivery service offering in Latin America. Our all-edge architecture provides a new economic model for streaming delivery, in which Cirion’s network infrastructure and CDN services play a central role in the end-to-end value chain. This announcement underscores the momentum we are gathering as we realise our ambition to build the world’s highest performing edge delivery network,” he added. 

Alejandro Girardotti, senior director of products, innovation and strategic alliances at Cirion Technologies, noted: “Data consumption and internet traffic is increasing rapidly across Latin America, and content providers need delivery services that are efficient in light of growing competition for internet bandwidth. With this agreement, Cirion and Qwilt’s combined CDN offerings are strengthened, meeting the needs of CDN customers.” 

Qwilt clearly has a model and technology that is ticking the boxes of network operator partners and content owners, but it faces very stiff competition from other CDN players, including those that have their own international network and node infrastructure, such as the hyperscaler cloud giants Amazon Web Services (AWS, with its Cloudfront platform), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Network, as well as long-time CDN giant Akamai and specialist companies, such as Edgio, Cloudflare, Fastly and CDNetworks.   

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV