We are going to be one of the first companies on this backbone.

Any else out there on it.

Joe

Really? When will you have the connectivity up?

cheers,
:beer:

Ive been asking myself that for about a month now.

We are narrowing down which facility we will use in chicago, but its between

Colo.com
Switch and Data
and Now per this Forum
Equinix

We look to be live in about 2 months. We have some premliminary Ip's that where testing.

We are looking at 12hops now, and from talks see it going down to 4-6 over the upcoming months. We also might do some basic testing in a facility in chicago that is live, with cogent.

Gb lines are not easy to just drop anywhere.

If it works out, costs are 6.3 cents per gb.

One of the weird things with cogent. For the first year or so, not alot of people will be able to use this, and even in the second and third year.

Overall we are really nervous about Cogent, but are looking for some people that might be using them on this board.

Joe

There also good.

Joe

Were also signing up with them but were not going to use them for hostin dedicated servers, were going to use it in a test environment, to make sure its just as stable as our quest/uunet backbone.... Alos they already have customers on it so neither of us will be the first...

I'd be a little concerned about their lack of network breadth:

http://www.cogentco.com/Difference/network_map.html

Two other concerns:

1. Who do they have peering agreements with? Having the fastest network on the planet does not do you any good if none of the major providers peer with you :). I wold find out if they have private peering, or peer at the MAEs. If its the MAEs, I would run a lot of ping tests from other other backbones to see how reachable you are.

2. Their marketing speak seems contradictory:

http://www.cogentco.com/Difference/about_network.html#MAN

Each of their Metro Area Networks are going to offer "non-oversubscribed 100 Mbps connection that is not shared with anyone else". Does this mean they will only allow 24.8 customers per MAN? That's not nearly enough to cover the cost of laying/buying dark fiber. Not to mention routers, employees, etc.

Anyway, the prices are really good, I'd be interested in finding out how well they perform, but I'm not going to sell my Qwest/UUNET stock just yet...however, you can have my PSINet stock :) :).

Originally posted by uuallan
2. Their marketing speak seems contradictory:

http://www.cogentco.com/Difference/about_network.html#MAN

Each of their Metro Area Networks are going to offer "non-oversubscribed 100 Mbps connection that is not shared with anyone else". Does this mean they will only allow 24.8 customers per MAN? That's not nearly enough to cover the cost of laying/buying dark fiber. Not to mention routers, employees, etc.


Exactly! I was always bothered with this also... the fact that they should only sell to 25 clients, each being charged for $1000/mo for $25000/mo ... not even enough to power up their OC-48, not even an OC3 or even a DS3.

This one thing is what makes me skeptical about cogentco (though would really love to try them out).

cheers,
:beer:

We start up with them May 1st out of telehouse, then we will most likely backhaul it equinix in Newark, and colo some there, then connect up to our ATM mesh, in equinix to bring it into the loop for our datacenter in Parsippany, NJ. I know it sounds compliciated but it really works.

:)

In regards to clients I will be one of the first companies live on the network.

They have 6 current live clients. There headquarters is in Chicago.

They sell more then just 100mbps lines. They also offer gb lines.

In regards to how there fiber works, look into it.

In regards to hardware, learn about what there doing. CISCO has contributed over 300 milliion in funds/hardware.

I will say this there peering network is lacking bad right now. I can give you a few IP's that I due tests on, and they are slow, but on the upside they have alot of potential.

Even if you use there line for redundancy issues, its not a bad deal.

Alot of things are up in the air with them. There not sure where there going, but its too good not to look at.

Until they proove themselves, using them as a primary backbone, well your going to be really slow, and loose alot of business.

Joe,

According to their website, they are headquareted in DC:

http://www.cogentco.com/Access/contact_us.html

Also, according to their website, they don't sell gigabit connections (maybe you are thinking of Yipes, who will be offering gig connections:

What are Cogent Communications' products?
Cogent Communications offers a single retail product 100 Mbps Internet access at a flat rate of $1,000/month. Cogent also markets wholesale transit services to Tier 2/3/4 ISPs and CLECs.


I don't need to look into how their fiber works, I know how fiber works, and I don't see how they can recover the cost. The Cisco investment is nice, but even $300 Million dollars worth of equipment isn't enough to build a national backbone.

Do you think you could get your sales rep from Cogent to post to this board? It sounds like they could potentially have a really nice product, and I'm sure they would have a lot of potential customers here, but there are just too many questions.

I'd like to know how they do it. I can't even get a 10mb shared ethernet connection for that price.

Please before you question me, make sure you got your facts straight. Im not in business to be wrong, i do my due diligence, being wrong costs money, and makes my investors have doubt. I research everything to the last spec of detail.

They do sell two products; and im not thinking of Yipes:
100mbps lines
1gb lines

From Cogent:
Next-Generation Internet Access
Cogent offers Competitive Local Exchange carriers, Carriers, ISPs, Content Providers, eCommerce and Application Service Providers fast 100 and 1000 Mbps Ethernet connectivity at a radically low price point.


If you read it correctly they offer a single RETAIL product.

They also offer wholesale products; which is for hosting companies:

http://www.cogentco.com/Access/wholesale.html

There is the link. In regards to recovering the costs; because of there technology, I wouldnt worry about that. They will do just fine.

Not to promote this company, because they still have much ahead. They have recieved close to a billion dollars in funding and hardware; leases and infrustructure:

300 mil from Cisco
215 mil from Williams building out the network

I mean come on; has anyone on this board ever built a national backbone. I sure havent, and have no idea the costs involved, but there not stupid people over there. Companies dont drop 300 million into a garbage company, with the wrong gameplan.

Joe

[Edited by JBIZ718 on 03-24-2001 at 11:59 AM]

Ahh, thank you, I did not see that page. But my point is still valid, if they are charging $10,000 for a 1 Gigabit connection, and nto over subscribing, they can still only fit 2.4 customers on each ring.

They did not get $215 million from Williams, they signed a contract to pay Williams $215 million for leasing fiber.

This is where I don't see how they can make money. According to their website they will have a 12,400 mile backbone. The last time I priced Fiber it was at about $100,000 a mile. In other words $1.24 Billion for their entire network. Assuming the price has come down 50% in the last 5 years, you are still talking about $600 Million just in fiber, you have already eaten up 60% of your funding, and aren't even turning up customers yet.

Also, whoever designed their network has obviously never done any research into Internet access use. Your three biggest areas of use are Washington DC, New York, and Silicon Vallley, yet they have no direct connection from DC/NY to Silicon Valley? Why would you not do that...unless you expect most of the traffic to travel off your backbone, which increases your peering costs, and eats up more of your funding.

I have helped build a national backbone, and I can tell you that $1 Billion is not enough, this is why I am so skeptical.

[Edited by uuallan on 03-24-2001 at 01:14 PM]

It would be worth while for you to call.

Because of there technology they can create gb line, after gb line after gb line.

its 3k for 100mbps
and 20k for 1gb

Right now there main peering point is in DC, actually its there only peering point.

As I said, they have alot of work to do before it gets going.

Nothing against anything, but the people who designed there network are doing something right. I dont work for them, but I will defend them. They are a very young company.

CISCO had alot to do with there network, and in about 6 months, cogent should be impressing everyone.

Take the time and call them on Monday. I can get you in touch with one of there engineers, and sales people.

Since Im not them, Let Cogent explain how everything is done, and judge for yourself.

To sum it up, i am skeptical also, but optimistic...

I have also done my due diligence on this company. They dont have any customers online outside of New York yet though. They should have the lines run in by May, June at the latest. We are looking at leasing some suites and moving in about $150,000 worth of equipment. Other than simply hosting servers, there's quite a bit more you can do considering the low bandwidth price, which are the options attracting us so much. The server hosting is secondary for us. They do have other things going, such as Level3 hoping that Cogent will buy some fiber from them. Cisco is their main investor, so peering is ensured. From their site...

************************************************
Extensive Public and Private Peering
Cogent has relationships with more than 100 private peering partners and has secured agreements between several Internet backbone and Web hosting providers to exchange traffic between networks, including the MAEs and NAPs.
************************************************

On another note, fiber prices have plummeted, which is allowing Cogent to do this. The high costs are strictly in laying the fiber. Still pretty expensive though.

Considering that they have a whole building lit in chicago, i question your info.

The lurie group is fully lit, in the loop.

They have almost all of there clients that are live, based in chicago.

I have been in talks with there senior engineer on several occasions.

In regards to there peering, its super slow, and to be honest sucks. They have one peering point through Abovenet in DC.

They need alot of work to become good. Time will tell with this one. At current state, running a hosting company off there backbone, will put you out of business.


Joe

Ok, well thats what they told me. Yeah, if the peering is slow, that could be a prob..

JBIZ718, can you post an IP of a server on their network?

Here is the latest email I got from them.

Cogent says:

Currently there are 6 in Chicago and NY. The IP address of the Chicago customer switch is 66.28.12.1. The OC12 to the Ameritech NAP will be operational shortly which will help all the Chicago outbound and inbound traffic. MaeEast is also active and currently routing to 8 or so different networks. The primary peering point is with AboveNet in DC.


Thats the latest email I got:

IP: 66.28.12.1

Hope it helps:

Joe