Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Washington, DC, Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. is a Tier 1 Internet Service Provider (ISP) that offers low-cost high-speed Internet access, private network services and colocation center services with ultra-low latency data transmission. The company provides its services to more than 228 major markets and interconnect with more than 7,864 other networks, spanning across North America, Europe Asia, Latin America and Australia. It addresses the dynamic needs of various small and medium-sized businesses, ISPs and other bandwidth-intensive organizations.

Cogent’s network comprises metropolitan optical networks, in-building riser facilities, inter-city transport facilities and metropolitan traffic aggregation points. It transmits low cost packet switched traffic over a reliable and secure network compared with traditional circuit-switched telephone networks. Its network infrastructure encompasses 1,862 multi-tenant office buildings, 1,558 carrier-neutral data center facilities, 1,251 intra-city networks consisting of 77,365 fiber miles and an inter-city network of 24,779 fiber route miles.

By type of network service, Cogent generates significant revenues from two types of Internet access services — On-Net services and Off-Net services.

On-Net services (51.9% of total service revenues in fourth-quarter 2023): On-Net services are provided to corporate and net-centric customers located in buildings that are physically connected to its network by Cogent facilities. Corporate customers include financial services, law firms, advertising and marketing and other professional services businesses. Net-centric customers include telephone firms, cable television, ISPs and commercial content and application service providers.

Off-Net services (45.5%): Off-Net services are provided to customers located in buildings that are connected to Cogent’s network using other carriers’ facilities and services by means of “last mile” or local access service lines from the customers’ premises. These services are delivered to small and medium-sized corporate customers in more than 8,400 off-net buildings with major presence in the metropolitan markets of North America and Europe.