Profile: Cogent Communications Group, Inc. (CCOI.O)

Cogent Communications Group, Inc. (Cogent), incorporated in 1999, is a facilities-based provider of Internet access and Internet protocol (IP), communications services. Its network is specifically designed and optimized to transmit data using IP. It delivers its services to small and medium-sized businesses, communications service providers and other bandwidth-intensive organizations through approximately 17,800 customer connections in North America and Europe. The Company’s primary on-net service is Internet access at a speed of 100 Megabits per second. It offers this on-net service exclusively through its own facilities, which run all the way to its customers' premises. Its typical customers in multi-tenant office buildings are law firms, financial services firms, advertising and marketing firms and other professional services businesses.

The Company provides on-net Internet access to certain bandwidth-intensive users, such as universities, other Internet service providers (ISPs) and commercial content providers at speeds of up to10 Gigabits per second. In addition to providing its on-net services, the Company also provides Internet connectivity to customers that are not located in buildings directly connected to its network. The Company serves these off-net customers using other carriers' facilities to provide the last mile portion of the link from its customers' premises to its network. It offers high-speed Internet access and IP connectivity to small and medium-sized businesses, communications providers and other bandwidth-intensive organizations located in North America and Europe.

The Company’s inter-city network consists of optical fiber connecting major cities in North America and Europe. The North American and European portions of its network are connected by transatlantic circuits. Its network was built by acquiring from various owners of fiber optic networks the right to use one or two strands of optical fiber out of the multiple fibers owned by the carrier. It has installed the optical and electronic equipment necessary to amplify, regenerate, and route the optical signals along these networks.

In each metropolitan area, in which the Company provides high-speed, on-net Internet access service, its backbone network is connected to a router connected to one or more of its metropolitan optical networks. It creates its intra-city networks by obtaining the right to use optical fiber from carriers with optical fiber networks in those cities. These metropolitan networks consist of optical fiber that runs from the central router in a market into routers located in its on-net buildings. In most cases the metropolitan fiber runs in a ring architecture, which provides redundancy so that if the fiber is cut, data can still be transmitted to the central router by directing traffic in the opposite direction around the ring. The router in the building provides a connection to each on-net customer. Within the cities where the Company offers off-net Internet access service, it leases circuits from telecommunications carriers, primarily local telephone companies, to provide the last mile connection to the customer's premises.

In office buildings where the Company provides service to multiple tenants it connect its routers to a cable containing 12 to 288 optical fiber strands that typically run from its equipment in the basement of the building through the building riser to the customer location. Service for customers is initiated by connecting a fiber optic cable from a customer's local area network to the infrastructure in the building riser. It interconnects its network through public and private peering arrangements. Public peering is the means, by which ISPs have connected to each other at central, public facilities. Its primary network operations centers are located in Washington, D.C. and Madrid, Spain. These facilities provide continuous operational support in both North America and Europe.