Re: Cogent for ISP bandwidth

[Jason Baugher <jason () thebaughers com>]

On 5/14/2012 7:30 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Jason Baugher"<jason () thebaughers com>
> > 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.
> Really?  That surprises me; people complain about Cogent on here, roughly,
> weekly.  :-)
Sorry, been on this list for quite some time, and I even went back to 
the archives. I don't see much there that is specific to Cogent doing a 
bad job. If I go back a few years, I find stuff about Cogent-Telia, 
Cogent-GBX, and even Cogent-HE IPv6 peering.
> > 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.
> The implication of everyone's "in a BGP mix" responses, in case you don't
> get it (and I suspect you might not) is that you don't want Cogent to be
> your *only* upstream provider.
>
> If you're going to resell the bandwidth as an ISP, best practice says you
> should have at least 2 upstreams.  3 or more is better,
This would be a 3rd or possibly a 4th upstream.
> Cogent has had a bad habit the last 5 or 10 years of getting into pissing
> matches with other carriers about peering, and just cutting them off
> (or being cut off)... which of course means that if they're your only
> connection to the Internet, then your customers simply can't reach sites
> connected to those providers.
>
> So, in short: no matter how agressive they are, they're not the carrier
> to have when you're having only one.
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra