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This in response to SinEmpire's post. We use Cogent as one of our upstream providers. But unlike some hosting company's, Cogent is not our only upstream provider. We also have Verio, Qwest, and Limelight (Williams) connections. Also we are in contract negotiations for our own public and private peering at PAIX.
We have an internal policy to never exceed 50% utilization of any circuit, (even our gigabit circuits with Cogent and Verio) to assure that we will always have connectivity in the event of a failure or upstream bankruptcy. Our network engineer has worked with Cogent to identify routing/latency issues and has made BGP policy changes to help route traffic around those trouble areas with Cogent's Netrail.
Cogent has had its share of growing pains with their peering, but with their recent acquisition of PSI.net, they have acquired much needed additional peering points to other networks. Another plus for Cogent is that they have a nationwide 80 gigabit/sec backbone. Some of the older networks like Verio, are still at OC-48 ( 2 gigabit) and OC-192 (10 gigabit) levels. With us, since we have multiple gigabit connections, a network with an OC-48 backbone doesn't cut it anymore.
How long will Cogent be around? Who knows. But one thing is for sure, Cogent has caused every network provider out there to re-evaluate their pricing structure, and that has benefited everyone.
Best Regards,
Reliablehosting.com / XXXWebhosting.com Technical Department
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