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”
There is a long-running dispute between Cogent and Hurricane Electric. Cogent has been refusing to peer settlement-free with Hurricane Electric, the (according to themselves) largest IPv6 network [27] since 2009. Due to this, IPv6 traffic cannot be interchanged between both networks. [28]
Cogent and Google have also stopped IPv6 peering in 2016. [29] 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. [30] [ speculation? ]As of November 2023, [update] the two networks appear to be reachable over IPv6 via Tata Communications. [31]
In February 2017, Cogent blocked many piracy and streaming sites including The Pirate Bay. [32] This was unintentional due to a poorly crafted Spanish court order. [33]
In February 2024, Cogent withdrew peering with NTT in Europe, [34] [35] 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, [36] 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.
However, in June 2024 this peering dispute was resolved. Connectivity between Cogent and TATA has been restored and is operating normally. [37]
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. IPv6 was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to deal with the long-anticipated problem of IPv4 address exhaustion, and was intended to replace IPv4. In December 1998, IPv6 became a Draft Standard for the IETF, which subsequently ratified it as an Internet Standard on 14 July 2017.
A router is a computer and networking device that forwards data packets between computer networks, including internetworks such as the global Internet.
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a standardized exterior gateway protocol designed to exchange routing and reachability information among autonomous systems (AS) on the Internet. BGP is classified as a path-vector routing protocol, and it makes routing decisions based on paths, network policies, or rule-sets configured by a network administrator.
In computer networking, peering is a voluntary interconnection of administratively separate Internet networks for the purpose of exchanging traffic between the "down-stream" users of each network. Peering is settlement-free, also known as "bill-and-keep" or "sender keeps all", meaning that neither party pays the other in association with the exchange of traffic; instead, each derives and retains revenue from its own customers.
The Internet backbone is the principal data routes between large, strategically interconnected computer networks and core routers of the Internet. These data routes are hosted by commercial, government, academic and other high-capacity network centers as well as the Internet exchange points and network access points, which exchange Internet traffic internationally. Internet service providers (ISPs) participate in Internet backbone traffic through privately negotiated interconnection agreements, primarily governed by the principle of settlement-free peering.
A Tier 1 network is an Internet Protocol (IP) network that can reach every other network on the Internet solely via settlement-free interconnection. Tier 1 networks can exchange traffic with other Tier 1 networks without paying any fees for the exchange of traffic in either direction. In contrast, some Tier 2 networks and all Tier 3 networks must pay to transmit traffic on other networks.
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An autonomous system (AS) is a collection of connected Internet Protocol (IP) routing prefixes under the control of one or more network operators on behalf of a single administrative entity or domain, that presents a common and clearly defined routing policy to the Internet. Each AS is assigned an autonomous system number (ASN), for use in Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing. Autonomous System Numbers are assigned to Local Internet Registries (LIRs) and end-user organizations by their respective Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), which in turn receive blocks of ASNs for reassignment from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). The IANA also maintains a registry of ASNs which are reserved for private use.
Internet exchange points are common grounds of IP networking, allowing participant Internet service providers (ISPs) to exchange data destined for their respective networks. IXPs are generally located at places with preexisting connections to multiple distinct networks, i.e., datacenters, and operate physical infrastructure (switches) to connect their participants. Organizationally, most IXPs are each independent not-for-profit associations of their constituent participating networks. The primary alternative to IXPs is private peering, where ISPs directly connect their networks to each other.
BGP hijacking is the illegitimate takeover of groups of IP addresses by corrupting Internet routing tables maintained using the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).
The Toronto Internet Exchange Community (TorIX) is a not-for-profit Internet Exchange Point (IXP) located in a carrier hotel at 151 Front Street West, Equinix's TR2 data centre at 45 Parliament Street and 905 King Street West in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. As of March 2021, TorIX has 259 unique autonomous systems representing 285 peer connections and peak traffic rates of 1.344 Tbps, making it the largest IXP in Canada. According to Wikipedia's List of Internet Exchange Points by Size, TorIX is the 16th largest IXP in the world in numbers of peers, and 17th in the world in traffic averages. The Exchange is organized and run by industry professionals in voluntary capacity.
Packet Clearing House (PCH) is the international organization responsible for providing operational support and security to critical Internet infrastructure, including Internet exchange points and the core of the Domain Name System. The organization also works in the areas of cybersecurity coordination, regulatory policy and Internet governance.
W. W. Grainger, Inc., is an American Fortune 500 industrial supply company founded in 1927 in Chicago by William W. (Bill) Grainger. He founded the company to provide consumers with access to a consistent supply of motors. The company now serves more than 4.5 million customers worldwide with offerings such as motors, lighting, material handling, fasteners, plumbing, tools, and safety supplies, along with inventory management services and technical support. Revenue is generally from business-to-business sales rather than retail sales. Grainger serves its customers through a network of approximately 331 branches, online channels, and 34 distribution facilities.
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IP exchange or (IPX) is a telecommunications interconnection model for the exchange of IP based traffic between customers of separate mobile and fixed operators as well as other types of service provider, via IP based Network-to-Network Interface. IPX is developed by the GSM Association.
The deployment of IPv6, the latest version of the Internet Protocol (IP), has been in progress since the mid-2000s. IPv6 was designed as the successor protocol for IPv4 with an expanded addressing space. IPv4, which has been in use since 1982, is in the final stages of exhausting its unallocated address space, but still carries most Internet traffic.
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Internet rush hour is the time period when the majority of Internet users are online at the same time. Typically, in the UK the peak hours are between 7 and 11 pm. During this time frame, users commonly experience slowness while browsing or downloading content. The congestion experienced during the rush hour is similar to transportation rush hour, where demand for resources outweighs capacity.