Slinging speed

If you haven’t listened to the podcast of my recent interview with Cogent Communications CEO Dave Schaeffer, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. In it, our hero is forced to confront his “dark” side—that is, the areas of Cogent’s footprint not yet connected to its fiber optic network.

For years, in discussions about Ethernet and quality of service, Cogent has been a consistent proponent of what’s often referred to as “throwing bandwidth at the problem.” In other words, if you provision more than enough capacity for your traffic, you avoid network congestion, and service quality won’t be impeded. You could call it an inefficient or wasteful solution, but you’d probably be forced to say the same thing about the redundant circuit-switched voice networks we in telecom folks have prided ourselves on for a century or so. And when it comes to Ethernet, Cogent will say, bandwidth is cheap.

Here’s the thing, though: The makeup of today’s Internet traffic is much different than it was only a few years ago, and it’s likely to keep evolving rapidly. With a growing volume of video traffic filling up today’s Internet delivery networks, and with the quality of service the video experience demands, can any provider succeed by continuing to throw bandwidth at the problem? I asked Cogent’s CEO how video changes the game, but his answer was the same as it was years ago.

“It’s real simple,” he said. “While there are a lot of complex technologies about packet prioritization or tunneling, the absolute best solution is to build a non-oversubscribed and non-blocked network--therefore, overprovision.”

Cogent is in the business of serving businesses, not residential consumers, and it has no legacy services or network to support. So you’d expect its strategy to contrast with that of say, AT&T. But still, is his approach to the Internet video age far-sighted? I’d be interested to hear your opinions on this matter.

E-mail me at ed.gubbins@penton.com.