The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple has quietly been making moves to beef up its Internet infrastructure. While the move may be to simply boost the performance of its existing online services, the publication speculates that it could also be preparing for the release of its long-rumored Apple television set.
Bill Norton, chief strategy officer for International Internet Exchange, which helps companies line up Internet traffic agreements, estimates that Apple has in a short time bought enough bandwidth from Web carriers to move hundreds of gigabits of data each second.
“That’s the starting point for a very, very big network,” Mr. Norton said …
Apple also hired some additional infrastructure personnel back in September, bringing on Lauren Provo from Comcast and Jean-François Mulé, a former technology VP at a TV R&D company.
While Apple already delivers a great deal of data through iTunes, iCloud, and the Mac App Store, as a rule they have delivered that via third-party content delivery networks (CDNs).
If Apple built its own CDN, it would give the company greater control and better performance for streaming media.
At this point, we’re in “wait and see” mode, as we await proof that Apple is either building out their content delivery network for an upcoming television project, or that they’re just building up their infrastructure to better serve the users of the content they already deliver.
