For content delivery startups, partnering with large carriers is the only path to survival in a cut-throat business dominated by Akamai (s AKAM). Edgecast, a Los Angeles-based startup, today announced that it is teaming up with German giant Deutsche Telekom (s DT) to offer a new service that will use DT’s backbone network. Edgecast is following the footsteps of its rival BitGravity, which had teamed up with Tata Communications to power a global CDN service for Tata.

Carriers like DT and Tata (and Level 3 (s LVLT) and AT&T (s T)) have the advantage of owning their own infrastructure and thus not having to incur severe bandwidth costs. CDN industry analyst Dan Rayburn had recently reported that the prices at video CDNs had stabilized. Edgecast and BitGravity both specialize in video delivery.