I hate when these questions get asked, because as the saying goes..."a person happy with a service will only tell one other person, but a person unhappy with a service with tell ten other people". So I think a lot of times you'll get skewed responses...but with that said, we've been using Cogent now for a year and no complaints at all. Had some minor downtime back in April due to a hardware failure, but Cogent responded extremely quickly, scheduled an emergency maintainance and had us running rather quickly. Face it, hardware problems happen so I can't blame Cogent on the failure. The few times I've dealt with their tech support group I found 99% of them very knowledgeable and I know that when we initially turned on the link they went the extra mile to resolve some initial problems during the weekend time frame.
My 2 cents and with any provider mileage will vary, Bret On Thu, 2009-06-11 at 15:01 +0100, Andrew Mulholland wrote: > At $JOB-1 we used Cogent. > > Lots of horror stories had been heard about them. > > We didn't have such problems. > > Had nx1Gig from them. > > On the few occasions where we had some slight issues, I was happy to > be able to get through to some one useful on the phone quickly, and > not play pass the parcel with call centre operatives. > > > and at least in the quantities we were buying they were significantly > better value than others, which was the primary reason we went with > them. > > > > andrew > > > > On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 2:55 PM, Paul Stewart<pstew...@nexicomgroup.net> > wrote: > > Our experience with them was at least one major (longer than an hour) > > outages PER MONTH and many of those times they were black holing our > > routes in their network which was the most damaging aspect. The outages > > were one thing but when our routes still somehow managed to get > > advertised in their network (even though our BGP session was down) that > > really created issues. I have heard from some nearby folks who still > > have service that it's gotten better, but we are also in the "regional > > offering" when it comes to IP Transit and have sold connections to many > > former Cogent customers who were fed up and left. > > > > I have found with Cogent that you will get a LOT of varying opinions on > > them - there are several other players (at least in our market) that are > > priced very similar now and have a better history behind them..... > > > > The specific de-peering issues never effected us much due to enough > > diversity in our upstreams and a fair amount of direct/public peering... > > > > Thanks, > > > > Paul > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Justin Shore [mailto:jus...@justinshore.com] > > Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 9:47 AM > > To: NANOG > > Subject: Cogent input > > > > I'm in search of some information about Cogent, it's past, present and > > future. I've heard bits and pieces about Cogent's past over the years > > but by no means have I actively been keeping up. > > > > I'm aware of some (regular?) depeering issues. The NANOG archives have > > given me some additional insight into that (recurring?) problem. The > > reasoning behind the depeering events is a bit fuzzy though. I would be > > > > interested in people's opinion on whether or not they should be consider > > > > for upstream service based on this particular issue. Are there any > > reasonable mitigation measures available to Cogent downstreams if > > (when?) Cogent were to be depeered again? My understanding is that at > > least on previous depeering occasion, the depeering partner simply > > null-routed all prefixes being received via Cogent, creating a blackhole > > > > essentially. I also recall reading that this meant that prefixes being > > advertised and received by the depeering partner from other peers would > > still end up in the blackhole. The only solution I would see to this > > problem would be to shut down the BGP session with Cogent and rely on a > > 2nd upstream. Are there any other possible steps for mitigation in a > > depeering event? > > > > I also know that their bandwidth is extremely cheap. This of course > > creates an issue for technical folks when trying to justify other > > upstream options that cost significantly more but also don't have a > > damaging history of getting depeered. > > > > Does Cogent still have an issue with depeering? Are there any > > reasonable mitigation measures or should a downstream customer do any > > thing in particular to ready themselves for a depeering event? Does > > their low cost outweigh the risks? What are the specific risks? > > > > Thanks > > Justin > > > > > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > "The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to > > which it is addressed and contains confidential and/or privileged material. > > If you received this in error, please contact the sender immediately and > > then destroy this transmission, including all attachments, without copying, > > distributing or disclosing same. Thank you." > > > > >
