RE: Cogent for ISP bandwidth

["Scott Berkman" <scott () sberkman net>]

+1 here.  Some would say if you are of a certain size, you almost NEED to
have a Cogent connection amongst others for when they have their spats.

If you are missing the history here, check out this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogent_Communications#Peering

        -Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul WALL [mailto:pauldotwall () gmail com] 
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2012 6:58 PM
To: Michael J McCafferty
Cc: nanog () nanog org
Subject: Re: Cogent for ISP bandwidth

Cogent is really better suited as a tertiary provider.

Not a bad option, but you don't want to lose redundancy when they get
involved in their peering dispute or de-peering du jour.

Drive Slow,
Paul Wall

On 5/14/12, Michael J McCafferty <mike () m5computersecurity com> wrote:
> Jason,
>
> I agree with John. You can't use them as your only provider, but you 
> wouldn't do that with *any* provider. I will add that they answer the 
> phone quickly, and the person who answers usually has a clue, has 
> access to the routers, and can be helpful. It's one of the benefits 
> that they really only sell one product. Honestly, I think their 
> support is better than most and the deliver what they say or better.
>
> In the past the had a A peer / B peer setup that was a little funky, 
> but I think they are getting rid of that as they upgrade hardware 
> throughout their network.
>
> We do also use Level3 (and others). As long as they come in to your 
> facility on different fiber or otherwise meet you physical diversity 
> requirements, you should be pretty happy. Add low commits to other 
> providers for more diversity as needed.
>
> Good luck,
> Mike
>
> On Mon, 2012-05-14 at 15:12 -0700, John T. Yocum wrote:
> > In my experience Cogent is fine when used in a BGP mix. When we used 
> > them, our service was quite reliable. Routing was funky at times, but 
> > we never had packet loss.
> >
> > --John
> >
> > On 5/14/2012 3:03 PM, Jason Baugher 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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