Cogent for ISP bandwidth

Tue May 15 13:39:42 UTC 2012

I appreciate the reference to bgp.he.net, I had not used that tool before.

We've worked with Sprint for years, and they have always been excellent 
for reliability and support. We recently picked up Level3, and so far 
they have been very good as well. It's a small thing, maybe, but I like 
that both Sprint and Level3 have nice online tools for change requests, 
trouble tickets, etc... We've been a Lightcore/CenturyLink customer for 
years as well, also very reliable. They don't have the slick online 
tools, but I can usually get a live person in their NOC.

Cogent is being very aggressive with their pricing, and if it weren't 
for the fact that we are geographically challenged and have to pay for 
transport to get to them, we might have already taken them up on it.

Thanks for all the input from everyone.

Jason

5/15/2012 8:00 AM, Faisal Imtiaz wrote:
> Let me say it differently.
>
> Take a look at thier AS174  peering relationship, (e.g using  
> bgp.he.net), you can see that they (Cogent) are very well connected 
> (directly) with all of the major networks. (this is what I meant by, 
> they deal with all of the major carriers).
>
> Your experience with traffic is very different from what we have seen, 
> while I  can understand that, it can be due to many factors.
>
> Based on AS Peering relationships, it would appear that Major / Most 
> of the end user ISP's have them in their mix. I my opinion the Hosting 
> providers use Cogent as a way to off load incoming  traffic from the 
> more expensive carriers. Cogent performance is very decent if the 
> traffic is all on-net ... they typically have issues when traffic is 
> crossing their network, i.e. coming in and going out via their peers 
> to other networks.
>
> While the Kia and Ferrari example is cute, but when put into the 
> context of 'Traffic' or 'Speed limit', then neither has the advantage. 
> One might look good driving in a Ferrari.. but I digress.... packets 
> are agnostic of what brand of router they are traveling thru or whose 
> network they are transiting.
>
> We are in agreement, that Cogent makes a good backup secondary or 
> tertiary in a mix of Ip transit. However having said that it is 
> valuable to check the bgp peering relationships of the different 
> providers that you have, to make sure that you are choosing providers 
> based on actual diversity rather than a perceived one.
>
> Regards.
>
> Faisal Imtiaz
> Snappy Internet&  Telecom
>
>
> On 5/15/2012 12:32 AM, Ameen Pishdadi wrote:
>> Has nothing to do with whether or not they deal with all the major 
>> carriers , they are a budget provider , always have , always will be. 
>> Aside from that what matters the most is eye ball user connectivity 
>> and level3 , AT&T, Verizon significantly have more eye balls 
>> connected directly to there network then cogent , we have cogent and 
>> level3 and 5 other providers on our Chicago network , with out any 
>> traffic engineering almost every thing will come in or go out level3, 
>> we use traffic optimizing equipment to automate our commit levels and 
>> also do performance based routing adjustments , I literally have to 
>> put a gun to its head to get a descent amount of traffic out to 
>> cogent , you may say it's a matter of opinion but statistics don't 
>> lie, even Telia out performs cogent according to stats , not just 
>> cause they have a massive eye ball network in Europe.
>>
>> Ask yourself , who are the majority customers of cogent? Not end user 
>> ISPs , hosting companies aka content providers, and when there 
>> selling bandwidth cheaper then it costs to peer then there going to 
>> keep there costs to the minimum ... Cheaper is cheaper , the saying 
>> is true , you get what you pay for.
>>
>> A Kia and Ferrari can both get me from point a to point b, but the 
>> Ferrari is capable of getting me there way quicker, and yes I'm going 
>> to pay a premium for it but if I'm going from NYC to San Fran I'd 
>> definitely feel safer in the Ferrari reliability wise and get there a 
>> hell of a lot quicker...
>>
>>
>> But like I said and the other 10 replies nothing wrong with cogent in 
>> a nice blend of 3 or more other providers ...
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Ameen Pishdadi
>>
>>
>> On May 14, 2012, at 10:49 PM, Faisal Imtiaz<faisal at snappydsl.net>  
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I often tell folks, Cogent is the 'Heidi Fleiss' of the industry 
>>> ...... pretty much everyone of the major carriers / providers deal 
>>> with them.. but no one wants to admit it.
>>>
>>> I don't think there is any carrier out there that could be 
>>> considered 'Premium' in terms of quality of service (yeah their are 
>>> a lot of folks who are Premium based on what they charge)...
>>>
>>> One can only hedge one's bet for a quality connection by having 
>>> multiple providers (you can mix and match) or go with some one like 
>>> Internap or Tinet (folks who are taking traffic across multiple 
>>> providers at their POP).
>>>
>>> Of course your mileage may vary.... as long as you have alternate 
>>> connectivity, it makes dealing with issues more palatable, whether 
>>> it is Cogent or Level3...
>>>
>>> Regards.
>>>
>>> Faisal Imtiaz
>>> Snappy Internet&   Telecom
>>>
>>>
>>> On 5/14/2012 10:38 PM, Ameen Pishdadi wrote:
>>>> No way they stack up against level3 or any of the other 4 big tier 
>>>> 1s but if you throw them in a blend with level3 there shouldn't be 
>>>> any issue and I wouldn't pay more the .75 cents a meg for a gig
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Ameen Pishdadi
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On May 14, 2012, at 5:03 PM, Jason Baugher<jason at thebaughers.com>   
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The emails on the Outages list reminded me to ask this question...
>>>>>
>>>>> I've done some searching and haven't been able to find much in the 
>>>>> last 3 years as to their reliability and suitability as an 
>>>>> upstream provider. For a regional ISP looking for GigE ports in 
>>>>> the Chicago/St. Louis area, is Cogent a reasonable solution? Our 
>>>>> gut feeling is that they don't stack up against a Level3 or 
>>>>> Sprint, but they are being very aggressive with pricing to try and 
>>>>> get our business.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Jason
>>>>>
>>>
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