Why hasn't online coverage melted NBC Olympics.com?

Jason Perlow of ZDNet just posted a really good discussion about why streaming Olympic coverage did not melt the Internet. 
The post provides interesting details worth reading. Following is my synopsis for those of you who don't have the time to read the whole thing:

Choosing Limelight over Akamai
In the US, NBC and Microsoft decided to let Limelight Networks handle the delivery of online Olympic video. So far that decision seems to be working out great.  In first 5 days of the Olympics, Limelight delivered more than 22 million  streams of Olympic coverage to 5 million viewers.  You might not like the time-shifted coverage, or the choice of commentators, or being forced to use a Microsoft Silverlight client, but you have to admit that the HD video being served up is usually stutter free and gorgeous.    

Limelight was not NBC's first choice for a Content Delivery Networking partner.  Like many other nations that decided to go with Akamai, NBC considered throwing the job to Limelight's much larger, better-known competitor.  Microsoft, which built the NBC Olympics site, was able to convince NBC to go with Limelight. I don't think they are sorry they did. 

Limelight's proprietary approach isolates video delivery from Internet slowdowns
According to Perlow of ZDNet, 'Where Limelight differs from Akamai and why the Internet didn't melt is quite simple -- they are completely off the cloud.  Unlike Akamai and similar content caching providers, their system isn't deployed over the public Internet.'

Limelight does not have as many large servers feeding out video as some of its larger competitors. What it does have is a partnership with 800 of the largest broadband Internet providers (including Verizon, Comcast, Road Runner and Optimum Online/Cablevision). This allows Limelight to co-locate many of its servers in the local facilities your ISP's uses, or to directly connect to those local servers.  That means that the Olympic video you watch at home is probably coming from a server located in your neighborhood. Better yet, that video is delivered to that server via a dedicated optical link.  This significantly shields your video from the stuttering and dropped frame problem that can come when video is being delivered via normal Internet piping. 

The path from Beijing to your home
Live video collected at each event is typically shipped directly to NBC's Broadcast Center in Beijing via a direct optical link. At the Beijing center they pull together all the video the US market is going to care about and then transcode it to 480i format. This video is shipped under the sea via another optical link to NBC Studios in Los Angeles where it can be edited into final shape and then passed on to NBC's broadcast center in New York. In New York they convert the signal to a Windows Media Format (WMF) format. Another optical link takes it to Limelight Networks primary East Coast data center so that it can be replicated to the servers serving up your local ISP's feeds.

Localized Content is the wave of the future
Like Jason Perlow I believe that localized content caching is the wave of the future.  We are not only ones who have come to this conclusion. Why else is Google spending so much money building so many local server farms in small towns all over the US?  As Jason says in his article, 'If we truly expect stuff like on demand video delivery, and 3G/4G/5G video to be delivered without any hiccups to next generation cell phones and other wireless devices, services like Limelight are going to become increasingly important.'