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Market for a CDN-like service with 1-3 locations in the EU/US?
BunnySpeed
Member, Host Rep
Good day 
I'm thinking of starting a new Pull CDN-like service offer that would include maybe 1-3 locations around EU and US and would be priced accordingly. Starting somewhere around $5/TB I'm thinking. It would basically be bandwidth as a service using the same system a normal CDN would use, but at a much lower price. Mostly for file/video delivery and things that don't require super low latency.
Just wondering what you guys think about that. Is there a market for something like this?
Comments
Maaaaybe?
It depends. I'm fine paying more for a 'proper CDN' with a ridiculous number of locations because I really can't be arsed paying for a ridiculous number of servers/VPS - It saves me time and money.
However, if it's just for throwing around large files I'd be more tempted to buy a cheap high-bandwidth VPS or two and do it that way, cheaply.
If you can compete with the later scenario, price wise, then sure I'd be all ears
just a question previously cdn was patent of akamai, if some new provider should pop up does he has to pay the fee ? other hand it is good idea but may be like min 3 to 5 for US and 3 for europe region , lot of people who need bulk high amount transfer can use it. provided it is same or cheaper than say If I want to do it myself.
I think there's a market for it at that price, but managing expectations might be difficult. Depending on the user base they might accept that some locations will have poor speeds and that's they way it is, but some might not and expect more.
Its interesting but expect a lot of abuse on that kind of pricing.
Thanks for your thoughts
Will probably go on with the idea. Any thoughts on the number of locations? I can't quite decide. Having 3 would increase the performance quite a bit, but also the cost, while just one or two locations don't seem that interesting.
Yeah, 3 pushes it into "this is useful" territory imo.
@jimaek what kind of abuse say 100TB would cost $500 and at this price it should be practical to provide the service these days right unless most of traffic always wants to use the premium carriers.
I can see your point. Still, you're comparing a geo-redundant, anycast DNS etc., fully managed service to a self managed server. If you were to set up a GEO DNS for something like this, the DNS itself would cost you more than $5/TB. EDIT: Which makes me question if the price should be a bit higher...
When I said abuse I didnt mean just a lot of traffic.
I also meant that people hosting malware, porn, copyrighted files and illegal stuff are very interested in a very cheap way to push their traffic.
Low prices always attract abusers.
Once some company has actually built business of cheap cdn around 100b.com until softlayer finally canceled their services, wonder what they might have come up with after that.
anyway abuse could be there , as long as it it controllable or less than 10% should be okay