MS Edge Update Communicates directly with hwcdn.net domain

Hello folks,

I read a couple posts regarding communication of Windows 10 machines with map2.hwcdn.net (windows update) and both posts seemed to indicate that this was not expected behavior.

Well I noticed my machine was doing the same thing while I was monitoring network traffic today and decided to look into it.  Using MSDN tools I was able to see that several services like BITS and Delivery Optimization were running instances of service host (svchost.exe) and communicating directly with map2.hwcdn.net.  Eventually I was able to trace the source to MSEdge.exe (the Chromium version).   

Decided to remove it completely and go back to vanilla Edge and then update again from the MS site.  I noticed then that the installer is pulling it's download from this very same domain.  

In addition, I've found that once installed, other services will periodically connect to this domain and transfer data.  Is this really unexpected behavior? 

If it is expected, the other posts on answers.microsoft.com should be updated to help direct others with the same question.  If not, this might indicate a problem.