Apple’s iOS 8 Downloads Coming From Their Own CDN, Likely Will Be a Traffic Record

Dan Rayburn | Wednesday September 17, 2014 | 03:32 PM | Comments (1)

I’ve looked at a lot of traceroutes today for the download of Apple’s iOS 8 update and so far, all the records I have seen show they are coming from Apple’s own CDN, not third-party CDNs Akamai and Level 3. It’s still possible Akamai and Level 3 have some of the business, but so far, I only see it coming directly from Apple, which is what I expected. Also, even though it has only been two hours since the iOS 8 download went live, from preliminary data that some ISPs have shared with me, it also looks like iOS 8 will be a traffic record inside last mile providers. I’ll have an updated post when I have more chart and figures on size of the traffic inside ISPs as soon as I get it. I’m still looking to view more traceroute info, so if you have any you can send me, especially from outside the U.S., please email it to me.

Update 3:52pm: One user in Finland is reporting the download coming from Akamai. Would make sense that Apple would use CDNs outside the U.S., but to what extent is still unknown.

Update 7:11pm:  Three tracroutes from London all show Apple as the CDN. I haven’t yet seen a single traceroute in the U.S. showing anyone but Apple for delivery.

3  31.55.187.197 (31.55.187.197)  7.758 ms  7.496 ms  7.168 ms
4  31.55.187.232 (31.55.187.232)  9.369 ms  9.544 ms  9.378 ms
5  195.99.127.0 (195.99.127.0)  12.364 ms
195.99.127.52 (195.99.127.52)  9.704 ms  9.504 ms
6  62.6.201.187 (62.6.201.187)  10.158 ms
host213-121-193-139.ukcore.bt.net (213.121.193.139)  11.071 ms
194.72.31.143 (194.72.31.143)  10.443 ms
7  t2c3-xe-1-1-3-0.uk-lon1.eu.bt.net (166.49.211.182)  9.692 ms
t2c3-xe-0-2-2-0.uk-lon1.eu.bt.net (166.49.211.174)  10.888 ms
t2c3-xe-0-1-2-0.uk-lon1.eu.bt.net (166.49.211.166)  10.196 ms
8  166-49-211-254.eu.bt.net (166.49.211.254)  109.327 ms  109.568 ms  109.273 ms
9  ae14-xcr1.lnd.cw.net (195.2.30.113)  111.650 ms  108.923 ms  108.916 ms
10  ae1-xcr1.slo.cw.net (195.2.31.202)  119.320 ms  119.162 ms  119.422 ms
11  apple-gw.slo.cw.net (195.89.40.2)  120.190 ms  139.025 ms  119.704 ms
12  uklon5-vip-sx-002.aaplimg.com (17.253.34.222)  10.935 ms  11.559 ms  10.968 ms

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