Cogent (AS174) sells IP transit and they sell it cheap. Everyone knows this. It is how they position themselves. It's their competitive advantage. It's why they think they will take over the world. They plan to undercut the prices and margins of all of the bigger carriers, combine that with strategic (cut-rate) acquisitions, and wait for everyone else to go broke. So far they're doing a pretty good job of executing on that plan.
However, I recently learned that "Cheap" isn't actually Cogent's secret market advantage at all. I'm not denying price matters to people who buy from Cogent. Heck, that's why Renesys decided to buy from Cogent for a development installation for Babbledog. (There will be more about Babbledog here shortly, as I'm sure it's something that many of Renesys's network-centric customers will have some questions about.)
This is a tale of a network-clueful small company trying to get connectivity at a well-connected building in Boston at a reasonable price. This is a tale of sorrow and woe, misery and despair. I'd like to say it has a happy ending, but on review, I believe that many of you will conclude, at least for the IP transit industry, that the ending is not happy at all.
