Company type | Public |
---|---|
Industry | Telecommunications |
Founded | 1999 |
Founder | David Schaeffer |
Headquarters | Washington, D.C., U.S. |
Key people | |
Revenue | US$940.922 million [1] (2023) |
US$(129.329) million [1] (2023) | |
US$1.273 billion [1] (2023) | |
Total assets | US$3.211 billion [1] (2023) |
Total equity | US$0.422 million [1] (2023) |
Number of employees | 1,947 [1] (2023) |
ASN | |
Traffic Levels | 100 Tbps+ [2] |
Website | www.cogentco.com |
Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. is a multinational internet service provider based in the United States. Cogent's primary services consist of Internet access and data transport, offered on a fiber optic, IP data-only network, along with colocation in data centers. [3] [4]
Cogent was founded in 1999 at the peak of the industry's growth and was funded by angel investors including members of Keiretsu Forum. [5] In three years, Cogent acquired 13 other failing carriers, purchasing $14 billion in capital for $60 million, including $4 billion worth of Property, Plant and Equipment. [6]
In September, 2022, it was announced that Cogent was buying the Sprint Corporation wireline business from T-Mobile for $1.00, assuming some liabilities. [16]
Cogent has been controversial in the ISP market for low bandwidth pricing and its public disputes over peering with AOL (2003), [17] Level 3 Communications (2005), [18] France Telecom (2006), [19] Limelight Networks (2007), [20] Telia Carrier (March 2008), [21] and Sprint Nextel (October 2008). [22]
On March 14, 2008, after Cogent stopped routing packets from European network provider Telia ( AS 1299), their two networks lost mutual connectivity. [21] The connection was reestablished March 28, 2008 with interconnection points in both the United States and Europe. [23]
On June 6, 2011, Cogent automatically stopped peering with the US Department of Energy's Energy Sciences Network ( ESnet) causing a disruption for three days. [24]
In November 2015, CenturyLink signed a new long-term bilateral interconnection agreement with Cogent Communications. [25]
In December 2015, Cogent sued Deutsche Telekom. Cogent claimed that DTAG failed to increase interconnection capacity between the two networks. According to a statement released by Cogent [26] “Deutsche Telekom has interfered with the free flow of Internet traffic between Cogent customers and Deutsche Telekom customers by refusing to increase the capacity of the interconnection ports that allow the exchange of traffic”
Cogent has yet to agree on peering with the biggest IPv6 connectivity provider, Hurricane Electric. As of March 2023, [update] direct connectivity between the two networks is impossible. [27]
Cogent and Google have also stopped IPv6 peering in 2016. [28] This is rumored to be closely tied to Cogent leveraging Google's IPv4 traffic via a paid customer or to maintain settlement-free interconnect with another network. [29][ speculation?] As of November 2023, [update] the two networks appear to be reachable over IPv6 via Tata Communications. [30]
In February 2017, Cogent blocked many piracy and streaming sites including The Pirate Bay. [31] This was unintentional due to a poorly crafted Spanish court order. [32]
In February 2024, Cogent withdrew peering with NTT in Europe, [33] [34] forcing all their peering traffic to go through their common remaining interconnections in USA, increasing latency and traffic loss between both networks, to complain against refusal of peering settlements in Asia from NTT.
In May 2024, Cogent withdrew peering with Tata Communications completely, [35] due to this networks that are single homed behind AS6453 (in APAC) or AS174 will not be able to reach each other. This is similar but more serious to the previous regional NTT-Cogent depeerings (since the NTT ones "just" increased latency by routing via the US instead). Despite what Cogent reported, Cogent has not de-peered, rather blocked routes to TATA single-homed transit.