Re: [SAGE] Cogent service?

["Richard Johnson" <rdump@river.com>]

At 09:21 -0800 on 2004-12-13, Michael T. Halligan wrote:
> Over the past couple of years I've heard a lot of naysaying regarding
> Cogent. I can't recall any impirical evidence
> as to why to avoid them, just a lot of anecdotal trash-talking.
>
> As I'm pricing bandwidth right now, I'm finding that cogent's prices are
> phenomenal.  So, are there any real reasons
> not to go with them? Reading the literature on their website makes their
> network sound at least as robust as everybody
> else (30+ naps in the US alone, their own fibre network, etc). So what
> I'm really curious about, my first instinct is to avoid them because of
> their cheap prices, and all of the naysaying I've heard, but I'd rather
> be a bit more scientific than that.


They'll probably be fine unless you want to send email from IP space
allocated from or routed by cogentco.com.

They're cheap because they either have no abuse staff and don't nuke their
spammers, or they're cheap because they're subsidizing you as a human
shield with extra money from spammers.

Either way, most cogentco.com space isn't allowed to mail to systems under
my control.

Furthermore, because doing so is exactly like yelling into a dry well, we
don't even bother to notify cogentco.com about the spam emanating from
their space.  Notification doesn't result in the spam stopping; it just
wastes our time.  We thus block any new cogentco.com space we see, on sight.

If you care about email, check out the number of ROKSO spammers they (and
any other provider you might be considering) host, at
<http://www.spamhaus.org/>.

Even if you don't care about email from the space you're going to rent, the
combination of spammers and low prices make me question the rest of their
marketing bushwah as well.

Good luck!


Richard