Great comment. Cloudflare is not a CDN. They are an edge computing platform that happens to offer CDN services. Could Akamai grow into that market faster than Cloudflare can consume it? TBD.
Edge computing is super interesting, and today's CDN providers should be able to provide it given their current infrastructure deployment. It could really bring in the next era of computing and technology once certain networks/providers reach critical mass to provide edge services within 5-10ms to customers.
If jgrahamc is reading this, I'd really like to know if Cloudflare wants to work with telcos.
Imagine a small server in every cell tower, with locally-cached maps/Wikipedia/latest movies.
Some communication couldn't be cached (e.g. real-time video calls), but a lot of broadcast media could be. Of course there are copyright implications, and it might require partnering with Netflix or others.
The quick load times would be great for users, and the reduced load on the backbone would be good for the telecom companies.
If you'd like me to chat to some friends in telcos in New Zealand about this, drop me an email. It's not my job now (I'm in IoT) but I know who to talk to if you'd like to get this kind of thing moving.
