I wonder how long before the YouTube announcement is? Everyone will be talking about HD later this year and into next.

Akamai (AKAM), under pricing pressure from upstart rivals such as Limelight Networks (LLNW), is upping the ante in the content delivery network wars. The company yesterday announced a new distributed delivery mechanism optimized for the delivery of high definition-quality content online.

The push for HD video over the Internet is a way for Cambridge, Mass.-based Akamai to get an edge over the increasing number of commodity CDN service providers. The company is using technologies from its recent acquisitions of Nine Systems and Red Swoosh for this new effort, which it describes as a “distributed delivery model.”