Cogent outage details?

["Scott Francis" <darkuncle () gmail com>]

am receiving word that Cogent has been the victim of "hardware
problems on our backbone causing latency and packet loss to customers
on the east coast". I did manage to get a master ticket number
(608503), but I'm curious if anybody out there (perhaps an actual
Cogent customer) has more details - backhoe? operator error?
evaporating subatomic black hole?
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