Cogent Communications (CCOI)

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Cogent Communications on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogent_Communications

Cogent Communications is a multinational internet service provider whose network spans more than 50,600 intercity fiber route miles and 14,200 metro fiber miles. Cogent provides service in over 145 markets across 28 countries in North America and Europe. Cogent carries approximately 25 petabytes per day of Internet traffic and connects to approximately 3,250 networks. Cogent has grown to become the second largest carrier of Internet traffic in the world with approximately 17% of the world's Internet traffic crossing its network.

Cogent's AS174 has one of the highest-ranked connectivity degrees on the Internet.

Acquisition history
Cogent was founded in 1999 at the peak of the industry's growth. In three years, Cogent acquired 13 other failing carriers, purchasing $14 billion in capital for $60 million, including $4 billion worth of Property, Plant and Equipment.

September 2001 - Acquires the assets of NetRail
February 2002 - Acquires Allied Riser
April 2002 - Acquires Building Access Agreements from OnSite Access
April 2002 - Acquires Major US Assets of PSINet
September 2002 - Acquires Major Assets of FiberCity Networks
February 2003 - Acquires Fiber Network Solutions
May 2003 - Acquires Assets of Applied Theory
January 2004 - Acquires LambdaNet France & Spain
March 2004 - Acquires Fiber Network and Equipment in Germany Out of Former Carrier1 Assets
September 2004 - Acquires Global Access
October 2004 - Acquires Aleron Broadband
December 2004 - Acquires NTT/Verio Dedicated Access Business in U.S.

Peering
Cogent has been controversial in the ISP market for low bandwidth pricing and its public disputes over peering with AOL (2003), France Telecom (2006), Level 3 Communications (2005), TeliaSonera (March 2008) and Sprint Nextel (October 2008). Sprint has stated that no peering agreement existed with Cogent, and that they were severing connections from a failed settlement-free peering trial the previous year. Cogent was notified of the impending disconnections and Sprint has temporarily reinstated the connection to give Cogent additional time to arrange for peering.

On March 14, 2008, after Cogent stopped routing packets from European network provider Telia (AS 1299), their two networks lost mutual connectivity. The connection was reestablished March 28, 2008 with interconnection points in both the United States and Europe.

Official Site: http://www.cogentco.com