Talk:Cogent Communications

Spamming Section
82.32.136.37 added a section that appeared at first read though to be accusing Cogent of spam generation. A closer read through and inspection of the "proof" showed that some spam originated from their network space. Since this isn't unusual, (every ISP has spam originate from their network) I thought it was improper to have a section called "spamming" on their wikipedia page. I can understand that someone may be frustrated by spam, but that isn't cause for making wild accusations. Marc.runkel (talk) 18:01, 12 November 2009 (UTC) for the record. I am not a cogent employee or customer.

Need for cleanup
The article reads like a corporate ad. Needs cleanup more encyclopedic tone. &mdash;ERcheck @ 02:48, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Defacing!
ogent keeps defacing this article and inserting false statements about themselves.--Tomthebomb193 13:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

about time you got some up to date imformation on here
Cogent should have sued for the trash that had been posted on here about them. Ever hear of slander? No frills teir two provider, my ass. &mdash;70.187.244.217 01:09, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Hello... "no frills tier two provider" is exactly what Cogent is. &mdash;198.252.182.170 20:10, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Potential Section on Tier 1 Status
There seems to be a bit of controversy over whether Cogent is a Tier 1 network. Therefore, before adding this section, and removing "Tier 1" from the description of Cogent, I am posting my proposed changes to be discussed:

While Cogent Communications is one of the largest providers of connectivity, it technically is not a Tier 1 provider. To be a Tier 1 network, every network it connects to must be either a customer's network, or a settlement-free peer's network. Cogent Communications does not pass this test, because it pays for transit from Verio in order to connect to some Tier 1 providers. However, it does not neatly fit into the category of a Tier 2 provider, because unlike a traditional Tier 2 provider, it has settlement-free peering with at least some Tier 1 providers. The Level 3 is definitely a peer, and Verio is most likely another peer.

It should be noted that while a Tier 1 provider is usually associated with being able to provide a higher quality Internet connection than non-Tier 1 providers, this is not necessarily true. A provider that paid to peer with every Tier 1 network would have access to the Internet at roughly the same level as a Tier 1 provider, but by paying would be disqualified from Tier 1 status.

Any comments? Techieman 07:06, 29 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I noticed that much of the description of Cogent as a tier 1 provider and other details in the article are simply a verbatim copy from Cogent's about page. I don't think this text, straight from Cogent's PR, should appear in the Wikipdedia article. Jnk 19:43, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Also, unless someone can verify that Cogent is no longer paying for transit, then regardless of what they claim on their website they are not a Tier 1 carrier by the commonly accepted definition. I believe they are still paying Verio for transit . Jnk 03:56, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

The definition of "Tier 1" is up for debate, but based on the accepted definition, Cogent should be considered a Tier 1 provider. Check out this article. http://www.renesys.com/blog/2008/06/cogent-becomes-transitfree.shtml.

My viewpoint
Well, we can't say they're Tier One, because they pay for transit in a few cases. I would think that being Tier One and Tier Two would be absolute things - if you pay for any transit, you're Tier Two. If you don't pay for any transit, you're Tier One. But really, I think there would have to be a "Tier 1.5" designation of sorts, because Cogent does do a lot of free peering. --Tomthebomb193 03:00, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

To verify that they purchase verio transit simply use their lookinglass on their website at www.cogentco.com and do a traceroute to either www.aol.com or www.sprint.com. Neither buy bandwith from verio but yet both are reached from cogent via verio. &mdash;Jwvo 19:07, 4 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Only Cogent and Sprint-Nextel know for sure, but you're right this is pretty telling:
 * Tracing the route to sprint.com (65.173.211.241)
 * 1 f29.ba01.b005944-0.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.250.56.189) 0 msec 4 msec 4 msec
 * 2 g2-1.core02.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.67.225) 4 msec 4 msec 4 msec
 * 3 v3493-mpd01.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.5.54) 0 msec 0 msec 0 msec
 * 4 v3497-mpd01.iad01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.5.66) 4 msec 8 msec 4 msec
 * 5 g14-0-0-3493.core01.iad01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.5.37) 4 msec 4 msec 4 msec
 * 6 verio.iad01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.12.22) 4 msec 4 msec 4 msec
 * 7 p16-0.sprint.asbnva01.us.bb.verio.net (129.250.9.54) 4 msec 4 msec 4 msec
 * 8 sl-bb26-rly-6-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.20.135) 8 msec 4 msec 4 msec
 * 9 sl-bb25-chi-3-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.20.89) 28 msec 28 msec 28 msec
 * It's being routed through Verio/NTT America's network (hop 6). If they had peering with Sprint-Nextel it wouldn't have gone through Verio. &mdash;Jnk 23:31, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * but this proves nothing except that they don't have direct peering with sprint or AOL. is it your contention that to be considered Tier1 you must peer with every ISP?  Marc.runkel (talk) 18:05, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

That trace route also is consistant with the AS-path visiable to customers of Cogent (I was a BGP speaking cogent customer until about a month ago). &mdash;jwvo 13:55, 15 May 2006 (PST)

Re:>>> Tier 1. The company says they don't pay anyone for transit. Despite the traceroute, certainly it's possible that Cogent doesn't pay Verio for transit. The only people who may ever know for sure are Verio and Cogent.

Also regarding 'definitions' since there seems to be confusion over basics, as with any other definition in the world, dictionaries and encyclopedias 'document' rather than 'set' information. "Tier 1" is a concept which seems to be trying to center around not paying anyone else for transit.<<< —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.118.170.179 (talk) 05:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Change re: Ethernet vs Internet
Note to changer, fine by me, but that change was made by the Cogent people I.e. they claim they are an ethernet provider. :-) &mdash;65.96.165.213 22:02, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Re: Ethernet: >>> The company has an all-ethernet setup according to them. Ethernet is a standard by which data gets put onto a pipe. Ethernet and Internet aren't mutually exclusive.<<< —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.118.170.179 (talk) 05:42, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

There isn't such a thing as an ESP - Ethernet Service Provider. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Soul9 (talk • contribs) 23:54, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

definitely NOT a tier1
they buy transit (from anyone). they are not a tier1.

"No-frills"
According to this (dated, according to their site, 29 April 2005) Gartner have stated that Cogent has  [a] "no-frills approach" [that] "has its risks." -- Karada 22:14, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Here are some facts about Cogent:


 * 1) 1. Cogent purchased many of Verios assets, including most of their T-1 customers, plus some of their Data Centers. Cogent no longer buys transit from Verio- this information is OUT OF DATE.


 * 1) 2. Cogent is currently ranked as the 5th most peered backbone, as defined by the number of unique A/S numbers with which they peer- currently around 1475 peers. This ranks them behind only the "Big Three" telco's and Level3.


 * 1) 3. Cogents Backbone is an Ethernet backbone, they sell Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet services, thus they are indeed the largest ETHERNET backbone in the USA as measured by the number of ethernet ports. Yes they are also an Internet Service Provider, and offer Type II services, such as DS-1, DS-3 and OCx services in addition to their Ethernet services.


 * 1) 4. Cogent has bought up the assets of 13 defunct ISPs, including PSINet. They are now traded on the NASDAQ under the symbol CCOI.


 * 1) 5. Cogent may be "no-frills" but when you can buy a 100Mbps Internet connection for $1,000 a month, who needs frills? Especially when the bandwidth you're buying is guaranteed!

I hope this information helps clear up some of the misconceptions about this company.

Cheers! &mdash;149.127.109.2 18:54, 4 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I see you are connecting from PSINet, are you a Cogent employee? From all I can tell Cogent did not buy Verio's backbone, but only bought 2400 of Verio's T1 Customers. "Cogent will acquire the majority of Verio’s T-1 Internet access customers and associated equipment. The transaction includes more than 2,400 business customers." Can you provide us with an external link verifying that Cogent now has a settlement-free peering agreement with Verio - or that Cogent bought Verio's backbone? &mdash;Jnk 19:37, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

-- 100mbps for $1,000 a month... 2021 and we now get 1GBps for $100 a month xD — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.81.157.69 (talk) 18:24, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Should be locked and/or have an accuracy dispute disclaimer
In light of the persistent vandalism (some of it traceable to Cogent, and I don't use the term vandalism lightly), shouldn't this article be appropriately marked with a disclaimer that its accuracy is in dispute and locked so that non-registered users can't edit? Same comment will be made in talk for Tier 1 carrier &mdash;Ke4djt @ 04 May 2006 (UTC)

Primary Customers
Can anyone provide some documentation to back this up before adding it back?


 * ", including the Adult Industry, and the Unsolicited Commercial E-mail industry, otherwise known as spammers."

Arwen4014 20:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Spamhaus lists four of their IPs on the SBL http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/listings.lasso?isp=cogentco.com, mci.com is currently the top spammer ISP with 214 addresses on the SBL. Cogentco does host Michael Lindsay http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/sbl.lasso?query=SBL36056 who has been kicked off of at least 3 other ISPs for spamming. So they don't seem to mind hosting spammers, I don't know if it is accurate to say that most of their customers are spammers though. This evidence says nothing about the adult content hosting, but there are sites where someone could research this.

128.192.6.234 12:24, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

gutenberg.org
From Germany, Project Gutenberg is behind Cogent, and each day recently, from about 10h GMT (5h East Coast, huh?), connectivity starts to drop. I take it as deliberately because as soon as a second process with traceroute to gutenberg enters cogentco.com the other line is UP as if nothing had happened. Ten seconds later, it's waiting for connection again, no avail. --Rwst (talk) 10:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * From Virginia, LacusCurtius is behind Cogentco, and inaccessible. 96.231.17.131 (talk) 17:20, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

The Internet "became partitioned"?
"The Internet became partitioned", suggesting that the Internet became partitioned into two disjoint parts, is putting it a bit too strongly. For example, during this process, did AS 701 customers lose connectivity to either network for any significant time? "The two networks lost mutual connectivity" might be a better way of putting it. -- The Anome (talk) 23:39, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's a better way of putting it. Andareed (talk) 02:22, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

In ipv6 the two networks did become disjoint, as no one wants to transit two of the biggest networks' (HE and Cogent) traffic for free. Just try it, configure an ipv6 tunnel with tunnelbroker and traceroute to cogentco, the status is still the same, cogent are not willing to connect their network to hurricane electric. Please stop praising cogent on this page, wikipedia isn't an advertisement place.

Peering edit war
Can we please stop the edit war and discuss here? Nobody has provided any reliable sources that the agreement is free or non-free. I'm removing this bit unless someone can find reliable sources that support either position Andareed (talk) 15:06, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I have already stated that the router mentioned in the history section is under TeliaSonera International Carrier customer network, hence Cogent is not an equal peering partner, but a paying customer. If you look at the routers the other tier 1 carriers use, none of them is under the customer network. For example, this is the router Level3 is using in Stockholm - level3-117311-s-b3.telia.net, see no c marker. Hence no customer. Thank you good night. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.227.136.194 (talk) 20:40, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * That qualifies as original research though. If you can find some reliable document that explain the router naming convention, we would be in better shape to add it. Andareed (talk) 01:13, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I have protected this article for 5 days, to put a stop to the edit warring over this section. Please work it out here, instead of mindlessly reverting each other. SQL Query me!  13:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

What exactly does this mean in laymans terms please. That Cogent is now a paid peering customer of Telia Sonera? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.241.55.48 (talk) 16:53, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, uh, listing Tad Weed as CFO is not funny. I fixed the blaringly obvious errors in the box as well as some grammatical issues (don't worry, there are still plenty left) before I remembered to log in.  -- Thefirstdude (t/c) 21:56, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I added this article above, but it looks like this discussion much more up to date. Cogent does not pay for transit, and this article, from a very reliabel source, refutes any claims to the contrary. Enjoy... http://www.renesys.com/blog/2008/06/cogent-becomes-transitfree.shtml

This article sounds like a cogent ad. The fact of the mater is that cogent's peering policies are frivolous, expensive and exploitive, and they refuse peering even if that means disconnecting a part of the internet from their networks. Somebody should lock this article and check the facts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:470:1F0B:4C4:9DBD:D7A0:AF0A:26CE (talk) 15:01, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Malware incident
I would like to make people aware that link #4, which points to a page on colorado.edu, seems to be infected with malware, according to Avast Antivirus. Shane (talk) 23:02, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Ahem! On another issue ....
Could anyone add anything to the article that would help understand Cogent's "place" in the scheme of things (without coming to blows over who pays who or might etc)? They "own" vast swathes of cabling across the globe I understand. There's no mention of this in the article. This from http://www.lightwaveonline.com/articles/print/volume-24/issue-10/departments/cogent-communications-banks-on-ethernet-over-ip-53441387.html

"Cogent Communications’ (www.cogentco.com) all-optical IP-over-DWDM network currently comprises 25,000 miles of intercity fiber stretching from Seattle, WA, to Budapest, Hungary, and from Oslo, Norway, to Miami, FL. Cogent also owns another 10,000 miles of metro fiber in 100 markets, comprising 225 rings that are directly connected to 1,180 end buildings. Cogent says its North American network currently supports anywhere from eight to sixteen 10-Gbit/sec wavelengths; in Europe, the network supports six to twelve 10-Gbit/sec wavelengths-and the carrier says it isn’t finished yet." Can someone put that into perspective in terms of the proportion of the global provision/information flow/users/nations/etc as a whole, and ownership as a whole? (and hopefully without kicking off another edit war about technical workarounds yadayada) Possible? Do-able? It would be of great interest and relevance. Ta! LookingGlass (talk) 16:37, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

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