Re: Honest Cogent opinions without rhetoric.

["Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick () ianai net>]

On Mar 8, 2006, at 1:56 AM, alex () pilosoft com wrote:

> At certain cities, your experience will be worse - Cogent doesn't have
> peers with big boys in every city they are at - so you'll have more  
> chance
> of being backhauled to sfo/iad than if you bought from $bigger- 
> carrier.

It's not just cities, it's entire countries.  Try being on a DSL line  
in France and getting to a Cogent web server in France.


> With regard to depeerings: they are a fact of life on the internet  
> - and
> as a service provider, you should always have multiple transits,  
> for this
> and other reasons. Yes, you obviously will have more risk of being  
> caught
> in a depeering fight if you are buying from $low-price-leader-du-jour,
> because these are the ones more likely to be depeered by $big-boys for
> being "too-competitive". ;)

De-peering is a fact of life, but Cogent takes something that other  
people consider a nuisance and turn it into a Real Problem.  No other  
network has been "de-peered" for multiple days multiple times in the  
last several years.  No other network has refused to provide some  
type of help (e.g. credits) for customers who were affected by the  
depeering.  (Hell, Cogent offered more help to L3's customers than  
they did to their own - although many people say they did not honor  
those offers.)

Etc., etc.

Cogent claims they are good for the Internet as a whole because they  
keep prices down.  That might be true for people who are only  
interested in price.  Or for people who are interested in partial  
transit for cheap (same thing, really).  But if you plan to single- 
home or otherwise _depend_ on Cogent, I would be hesitant.

--
TTFN,
patrick

P.S. To be clear, Cogent has lots of peers and works very well for  
most destinations most of the time.  However, is not necessarily what  
some people need from their provider.