By William Fellows
CacheFlow Inc has snagged a $5m deal with Time Warner Inc’s RoadRunner high speed network for its web cache appliances. It is CacheFlow’s biggest public deal to date and will run for a couple of years. RoadRunner has deployed CacheFlow appliances at six of its head-end internet connectors and will build out to the rest of the 21 over the next three months. After than it will be using a raft of the appliances for caching its client traffic.
The high-speed internet access venture is gradually building out interactive capability to Time Warner’s cable network and has some eight million of 30 million homes covered. Even the likes of RoadRunner and @Home Networks cannot rely on fat pipes alone to deliver their services that are still at the first rollout stages, and @Home uses some proxy and caching technology from CacheFlow competitors. Internet throughput is generally slower than cable access speeds which limits the degree to which broadband access can improve web page response time, the company says. Caching appliances are one way to improve internet throughput to take advantage of cable’s access speed.
CacheFlow CEO, Brian Nesmith expects the market for caching appliances to gather some significant momentum over the next six months as other users reveal themselves. CacheFlow is in the midst of securing a third and final round of venture funding which it hopes will bring in some $15m. It will head for an IPO after that.
