AT&T and Akamai announced on Tuesday that they have extended their business partnership through 2023. Akamai and AT&T started their partnership in 2012 and first extended it three years ago.
Akamai's global server footprint is located at the edge of AT&T's IP network, which gives AT&T business customers access to Akamai services that are part of the telco's portfolio of cloud and network services.
Over the course of their collaboration, AT&T has become the largest global provider of Akamai's security solutions, which include its Enterprise Application Access (EAA) and Enterprise Threat Protector products, providing secure, controlled access to apps for remote workers, and secure web gateways, respectively.
Businesses of all sizes have accelerated their digital transformations due to the Covid-19 pandemic. AT&T has also been aggressive in building out its edge compute capabilities to put applications and services, such as 5G and IoT, closer to end users.
In April, Microsoft announced it was working with AT&T to bring ultra-low-latency edge compute to joint customers. In March, AT&T and Google Cloud announced they were teaming up to build enterprise use cases, which could include video analytics, augmented and virtual reality applications and data-intensive sensors, on AT&T's network edge.
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Akamai's "intelligent" edge services and applications are being deployed within AT&T's IP network to offer business solutions that cover a range of verticals including retail, finance, entertainment and manufacturing, among others.
"The ability to conduct business online is more important than ever, and the ability to do so demands reliable business solutions with scale and performance," said Mo Katibeh, chief product and platform officer at AT&T Business, in a statement. "AT&T's network and comprehensive portfolio of business solutions combined with Akamai's edge platform deliver the capabilities to meet the extraordinary demands of today's unique environment."