Cogent Communications


Cogent Communications 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.

Acquisition history

Cogent was founded in 1999 at the peak of the industry's growth and was funded by angel investors including members of Keiretsu Forum. 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.
Cogent has been controversial in the ISP market for low bandwidth pricing and its public disputes over peering with AOL, Level 3 Communications, France Telecom, Limelight Networks, Telia Carrier, and Sprint Nextel.
On March 14, 2008, after Cogent stopped routing packets from European network provider Telia, their two networks lost mutual connectivity. The connection was reestablished March 28, 2008 with interconnection points in both the United States and Europe.
On June 6, 2011, Cogent automatically stopped peering with The Department of Energy Sciences Network causing a disruption for 3 days.
In November 2015, CenturyLink signed a new long-term bilateral interconnection agreement with Cogent Communications.
Cogent has yet to agree on peering with the biggest IPv6 connectivity provider, Hurricane Electric. As of March 2016, direct connectivity between the two networks is impossible. Cogent and Google have also stopped IPv6 peering in 2016. 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.
In February 2017, Cogent blocked many piracy and streaming sites including The Pirate Bay. This was unintentional due to a poorly crafted Spanish court order.