I'm pleased with Cogent transit I utilize in a number of client networks as well, and our clients have signed for several new Cogent circuits under promotional pricing currently available. As I said in my post, the Cogent product is fine (for the most part; though there are isolated/ocassional problems), but when offering co-location / dedicated server products (if dedicated is among the service offerings you are considering) you'll find a great deal of resistance from "high end" clients who are willing to pay more per Mbps.

We don't evaluate transit purchasing options on a purely technical basis because it doesn't work. Customers ask who your transit providers are because they think they're smart, and those who believe what they read about Cogent on the boards, or have been burned by companies who have used Cogent in the past, will balk at being single-homed to them. We look at transit from a sales and marketing perspective as well; and that's very important when considering an opportunity like yours.

Do you intend to market primarily to Baltimore customers?

It's a complex question that depends on your location. Customers generally respect Level(3) and Global Crossing, who are both good and inexpensive choices. AboveNet is certainly available at a reasonable cost as well, but eventually, customers will catch on to the same problems that hosting companies who use AboveNet are beginning to identify, e.g. limited staff resources, peering problems, and so on. UUnet, Sprint, and Savvis are all reasonable choices from a "high end" perspective but you'll typically pay more to those providers for the same Mbps. There are plenty of others out there, such as WilTel, Qwest, TWTC, etc. but we generally don't find value in their offerings from a price, performance, turn-up, and service perspective.

If you'd like to take a serious look at all the options available to you, get in touch with me off-board and I'll be happy to spend some time on your project. We've got a great deal of experience doing what you are looking at, and aren't looking to bill you anything for a couple of hours on the phone or putting you in touch with some vendor reps.

When you get into more detail, e.g. hard costs on equipment, network topology, and so on, we'll figure out what consultation arrangement suits you best; but for initial calls we consider our time spent to be an investment in a future relationship. These things don't always pan out, and once in a while we find we've got 10 or 20 hours into something that doesn't make us a dime; but that's part of doing business for a group like mine, and we're very satisfied with the returns we've received by being willing to spend some time up-front.