CNN, Netflix and NFL Using Level 3 For Content Delivery

Over the past few days I have been using tools to examine DNS and CNAME records for a lot of the major sites on the web to see which CDNs are delivering their content. While there have not been a lot of surprises, I did found out that Level 3 is delivering videos for Netflix and the NFL and delivering small objects for CNN.

I have been saying for some time now that Level 3 is getting some good traction with their CDN offering, yet many ask me if that is that is the case, why hasn't Level 3 announced a lot of these big customers? While they have announced a few, like the NHL, in many cases customers don't let CDNs use their name for press or marketing outreach. This is quite common amongst all CDN customers and not unique to Level 3.

But by using tools that examine DNS and CNAME records, it's not too hard to figure out which CDNs are delivering the content. That's exactly what I found out when I examined where content from Netflix and CNN is coming from. While it was always clear that Limelight delivers the vast majority of Netflix's content, Level 3 is also delivering some of their videos and Netflix's business is not exclusive to Limelight as I originally thought. And while Akamai is still delivering all of the videos that I saw coming from CNN.com, many of the small objects on CNN.com are being delivered by Level 3's caching network.

I've also learned that Level 3 is delivering the new NFL video on-demand service, "Game Rewind", which is really no surprise being that it is using Move Networks technology. While many may not know the connection there, Level 3 invested $6 million into Move Networks earlier in the year and as a result, gets a lot of Move's business. In addition to Game Rewind videos, Level 3 is also delivering the live stream for the NFL's Game Pass HD service; a subscription based offering that is only available to users outside the U.S. and Canada.

To gather most of the details, I used Fiddler, which runs as a “proxy” between your web browser and the network and listens to Port 80 (HTTP) or 443 (SSL). There are a bunch of other tools out there as well and if anyone knows of a Mac based tool, I'd love to know what it is.

Related:

- Level 3 Opens Broadcast Encoding Centers: Ecosystem Offering Now In Play

- Q&A With Jim Crowe, CEO of Level 3 About Their CDN Business

Comments

[Just Wondering]

Could the recent quality problems that the NFL, NetFlix, etc have been suffering, all of whom are recent L3 customers, been due to quality problems with L3's network?

I don't work for a competitor but it is an obvious common theme and these companies didn't have quality problems with their other CDN vendor (Akamai).

Again, just a sideline observation.

[Christopher Levy]

Dan are you positive this traffic wasn't coming from other CDN boxes that are sitting at Level 3? Just throwing it out there.

[Dan Frommer]

Little Snitch is the tool I use for the Mac for this. (Plus the built-in Network Utility app that comes with OS X.)

[GreenField]

If the videos the website is delivering are using Flash streaming (RTMP), you can do a CMD prompt "Netstat" to see where the content is coming from. Visualizing the traffic through the RTMP dedicated port of 1935, see the IP, do a whois n the IP finding the IP allocation owner.

Wonder if the other CDN's that state they have built their "own" infrastructure are actually "reselling" LimeLight or L3?

this is the part of the message where you go "Hmmmm..."

[John]

Charles is a similar tool to Fiddler and runs on Windows, OSX and Linux. It's demo version only until you pay the very reasonable registration fee but it's completely worth it. Sound like I'm astro-turfing here but just a fan :)

[Anonymous]

Dan, just a few short months ago you were "able to confirm that Limelight Networks will be streaming all of the movies for the new XBOX 360 Netflix offering", and now you tell us that Level 3 is actually doing the work. What's up?

[Dan Rayburn]

Where in my post did I say anything about Level 3 doing anything for the XBOX 360? Netflix streams movies to many devices including TiVo, Roku, XBOX and the PC. As my post states, this was in reference to content being viewed on the computer, not the XBOX 360.

[Anonymous]

Dan, did you actually read your post? It says no such thing.

In any event, you may want to check what Netflix is using for Xbox 360. Hint: it starts with an L, but it's not Limelight.

[Dan Rayburn]

The word XBOX does not appear anywhere in my post. Furthermore I say that I was "......using tools to examine DNS and CNAME records for a lot of the major sites on the web." The XBOX 360 is not a website.

[Bryan Sarpad]

I find http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/ to be very good at collecting all the information. I use http://tamperdata.mozdev.org/ if I need to manipulate any header information. Since they are Firefox extensions, they are platform independent.