Al Jazeera Un-Akamized

Sean Donelan sean at donelan.com
Fri Apr 4 09:13:21 UTC 2003



I don't know if I'm more surprised Akamai took on Al Jazeera as a
customer, or that Akamai dropped Al Jazeera as a customer.  But it
does show the stress the Internet brings to international communications,
that you don't see applied to the postal service or international
telephone or satellite service.


http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/04/technology/04WEB.html

New York Times April 4 2003
Akamai Cancels a Contract for Arabic Network's Site
By WARREN ST. JOHN

In a move sure to complicate the efforts of Al Jazeera, the Arabic news
network, to get its English-language Web site running, Akamai Technologies
abruptly canceled a contract on Wednesday to provide Web services for the
site.

Employees at Al Jazeera headquarters in Doha, Qatar, said they were
frustrated by the decision, though not entirely surprised. "It has nothing
to do with technical issues," said Joanne Tucker, the managing editor of
the English-language site. "It's nonstop political pressure on these
companies not to deal with us."

Akamai, based in Cambridge, Mass., would not comment on the reason for the
cancellation. But Jeff Young, a company spokesman, issued a statement
confirming that Akamai would no longer do business with Al Jazeera.





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