COGENT & co. - Hosting Companies: Show that you know what you are doing!
 

ok here it goes:
i am confused and i am sure that i am not the only one here!
so i want YOU hosting guys to answer some questions - show me that you are different then me - show me that you are able to explain things to me as i am no hosting expert:

I always only heard bad things about COGENT BW on boards, from all kind of people.person #1 told me its fast and good bw - form #2 i hear its slow and shitty BW.
ALL depending on which hosting company reps i talked to!!!!

now i want you guys who are searching for people like me to become your potential customer to post here!!!

WHAT IS RIGHT?? WHAT IS IT ABOUT COGENT THAT MAKES ME FEEL BAD?? tell me anything that might be helpful please

i hope guys from phatservers, oxeo, isprime, m3servers, datahosters, likewhoa, candid, eliteplanet, racksale and the list goes on all state something about it. i wanna see if you guys can answer. not posting would make me think that you have no idea.

would appreciated it.... remember i am a confused customer currently on cogent - and i do not know if this is good or bad. be honest and show that youre skilled enough to answer! i dont want no rumours no more.. i want facts

Thanks for anyone helping a confused guy like me!
that was my cry for help

Can someone post that map of cogents connectivity, it was a big pic of the u.s. & showed cogents lines on it & then there was a pic under it of like level3 or verio.

Thats a great way to understand it, i think its somewhere on the board, i'll do a search for it.

Did Cogent get it's peering back with AOL, if not, AOL users get like a 3000+ ms ping time to cogent bandwidth. That is like hosting your site off your 56K modem!
ZoiNk

Thing is it wasnt only an AOL-Cogent issue. It affected loads other ISPs. Roadrunner and a couple euro ISPs were enjoying the 3000 ms pings as well.

Cogent's pricing is below what most providers want to charge, which works against them when they want to set up peering (which is the "lifeblood" of the internet, for so-called "tier 1" providers). Cogent recently lost the AOL peering (as stated above), which has only recently shifted over to MFN/AboveNet (the latency was 3000+ms for how many days? like 15? 30?) i would be unsurprised if AOL eventually cuts off MFN... surely, MFN is exceeding their peering agreement thresholds with Cogent on board.

Cogent cannot stay in business as they are now for much longer.

http://www.cogentco.com/Images/Difference/map_opt.jpg

VS.

http://www.level3.net/userimages/dot.../dotcom_us.gif

Try looking on the Cogent and Verio websites. Usually providers list their maps for all to see in terms of connectivity.

The map can be whatever the ISP wants it to read like, when I state that, my meaning is that the ISP's may have lines that are planned for the future in there as well as current offerings. I know this from working at ISP's. What is really there can be different from what is on the map in SOME instances. THis is the truth........

You can check out Boardwatch's site, Keynote, etc to see performance tests under a variety of conditions, to see the interaction from backbone to backbone, you can trace across a few networks from traceroute.org.

I would suggest talk to read as much info as possible that you can find from searches, publications, and sites that deal with the metrics of each ISP to get a well rounded opinion.

Off to slice it up

Herb K

So what exactly does this mean?

On Cogent, you have to go through more "middle men" to connect?

regarding level3's map - keep in mind that level3 is a largish colocation provider, so they have facilities all over the place. cogent isn't - they just light up some buildings in some cities. different models lead to widely different maps.

Here's Verio's map:

http://www.verio.net/company/technol...workmapUSA.jpg

Cheers,

Brad

More Verio...
http://www.verio.net/company/technol...orkmapEuro.jpg

http://www.verio.net/company/technol...orkmapAsia.jpg

And here's global crossing:
http://www.globalcrossing.com/html/map.html

This is how Rackshack builds a network. Scroll down and you'll see Time Warner, Verio, Williams, etc. yes even 1 Cogent connection.

Anybody who relies strictly on Cogent is crazy.

http://www.rackshack.net/english/aboutus/networks.asp

And then you will always get someone posting like myself, who says that Cogent can be good and cheap bandwidth.

After the AOL peering scare I moved one of my dedicated servers off of Cogent and onto a verio connection. To my surprise, my bandwidth usage did not change at all. It was about 5.7 mbps on cogent and 5.7 mbps sustained on the new box as well. If AOL and others were having problems connecting, logic would have it that my bandwidth usage should have skyrocketed.

Plus, I test my download times religously once a day from 10 loacations worldwide, to all of my dedicated boxes. The difference between my Cogent boxes and my other boxes is usually within 1 to 2 seconds for the download of my 184K test page.

I think it all has more to do with the quality of the host and their knowledge of tweaking the server for your particular type of traffic. I now manage all of my own boxes, and as indicated above, I find there is no real difference between Cogent and the other "premium" providers.