BARCELONA -- Mobile World Congress 2011 -- With the growing demand for video services and increasing interest in cloud services in mind, Ericsson AB today announced a tie-up with content delivery network (CDN) specialist Akamai Technologies Inc..

The partnership will see Akamai software integrated in Ericsson infrastructure to optimize the delivery of content and applications across mobile data connections. The resulting technology fusion, which Ericsson is calling Mobile Cloud Accelerator, will be trialed with network operators in the coming months.

"Akamai has the relationships with the content companies, and Ericsson has the technology to get the content to the end users," stated Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg at a press conference Monday morning here in Barcelona.

Akamai President David Kenny noted that his company had the ability to deliver high-quality content over fixed broadband connections, but that currently the same level of service quality isn't possible over mobile connections. "This partnership gives us the same delivery capability [as fixed] over mobile … We are going to make the mobile cloud a reality."

CCS Insight analyst Paolo Pescatore told Light Reading that this was "a fascinating deal -- a combination of the mobile networks leader with the content delivery leader. It plays to both their strengths, and the timing is right as people [companies and individuals] want content anywhere, at any time and on any device."

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— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading