It appears that Cogent has finally shed its “Skeletons from the Closet” and has emerged as a new force in the CDN Ecosystem. Cogent is now providing “High Quality Transit” that rivals Level 3. For many years, Cogent was perceived as inexpensive transit that was vastly oversubscribed. Over-subscription leads to high packet loss and latency. In fact, the competition has been using this against Cogent for many years. It wouldn’t be surprising if many Telco folk still believe this about Cogent.
Cogent is a new powerhouse in transit to CDNs. How did this happen? For starters, Cogent is now peering with the Tier 1’s in the US, thanks to Net Neutrality, and the last mile pipes have opened up to them. How did we find out about this? A handful of CDNs told us they noticed a big difference in the QoS of Cogent transit, and it was on par with Level 3. We didn’t believe this at first, until three CDNs told us so. More confirmed afterward. That’s good to know there are more transit options available to CDNs worldwide.