Cogent: Conference Way North

Quick Facts:

• Founded in 1999; publicly traded company (NASDAQ: CCOI).
• Headquartered in Washington, DC.
• Serves 190 markets in North America, Europe and Asia
• Provides Internet access, Ethernet transport and colocation services.

Cogent Network

• 2,125 On-Net buildings
  • 69% multi-tenant office buildings
  • 31% carrier neutral and Cogent data centers
• 50 Cogent data centers with 550,000+ square feet
• 610+ metro networks; 27,200+ metro fiber miles
• 59,000+ intercity fiber route miles
• Long-haul capacity up to 580 Gbps
• Transatlantic capacity over 800 Gbps across multiple cables/routes Interconnected with 5,270+ different networks

Acquisition History

Although debuting at the height of the telecom industry, Cogent soon found vast market wealth eradicated and many other ISPs thrown into a state of turmoil. In a survival of the fittest competition, Cogent became the consolidator in a consolidating market. Over three brief years, Cogent completed 13 acquisitions of other flailing providers. Whether it was an entire company or just select assets, Cogent was able to acquire valuable network assets, customers, peering relationships and building access agreements for pennies on the dollar.

Among Cogent's 13 acquisitions to date include three of the original generation Internet Service Providers who were pioneers in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These companies—PSINet (originally Performance Systems International), NetRail and Aleron (originally AGIS/Net99)—were the earliest providers of commercial Internet service.

Other strategic acquisitions include assets from: Allied Riser, OnSite Access, Fiber City, Fiber Network Solutions, Applied Theory, LambdaNet France and Spain, Carrier1, Unlimited Fiber Optics, Global Access, Aleron, NTT/Verio.