Cogent Communications

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Cogent Communications Group, Inc.

Type	Public (NASDAQ: CCOI)
Founded	1999
Headquarters	Washington, D.C.
Key people	Dave Schaeffer Founder/CEO Reed Harrison President/COO Tad Weed CFO
Industry	Telecommunications
Revenue	$149.1 million USD (2006)
Operating income	$46.6 million USD (2006)
Net income	$53.8 million USD (2006)
Employees	377 (March, 2007)
Website	www.cogentco.com

Cogent Communications is a multinational Internet Service Provider. It has a facilities-based network spanning over 23,000 miles and provides service in over 95 cities across 14 countries. Cogent carries over 8.0 Petabytes per day of Internet traffic across it's network and connects to over 2,000 other networks including 385 Peer ASes.

Cogent offers several services including dedicated Internet service, colocation services, and Layer 2 point-to-point services in areas where it has its own last-mile network connections.

Cogent has been controversial in the ISP market for two reasons. One, its pricing at $10 per megabit undercuts the entire industry, and two, it has had public disputes regarding peering on more than one occasion AOL (2003), France Telecom (2006) and Level 3 (2005). In each instance, these other providers ultimately reconnected to Cogent.

[edit] Peering

Cogent currently has direct peering with over 2000 other networks and 385 peer ASes inclluding many Tier 1 Providers.

The extent and tier of peering and connectivity are substantial competitive issues that encourage sales and much controversy and marketing typically revolves around claims by those who are not indisputably in a particular tier. Carriage of traffic is itself a substantial business issue that is often involved in disputes, since those carrying it for the longest distance tend to have greatest costs and Cogent is a major source of traffic, with its customers generating carriage costs that someone must pay for. This leaves Cogent with a strong incentive to route the traffic away from its own networks, while those receiving the traffic have a strong incentive to demand payment for transit instead of accepting (free, called settlement-free) peering. Peering, unpaid, is typically completely satisfying to both parties mainly when the traffic levels are roughly equal, otherwise some payment is often demanded.