Cogent Communications (Nasdaq: CCOI) CEO Dave Schaeffer has extended an olive branch of sorts to broadband service providers like Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), AT&T (NYSE: T), Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ), which are among those at loggerheads with the backbone provider over traffic costs.
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Schaeffer |
In a press release, Schaeffer said that Cogent would pay the capital costs of companies to upgrade their connections to "ensure adequate capacity to upgrade traffic exchange capacity" but would stop short of any deals that smacked of "paid peering arrangements."
Cogent cited Verizon, Comcast, AT&T and Time Warner Cable specifically as companies with which it's willing to work, because "Cogent believes that these major telephone and cable companies are attempting to leverage their monopoly on broadband residential Internet connections to increase their profits by imposing tolls on traffic requested by their customers and delivered by other Internet service providers."
According to Schaeffer, Cogent would like to follow a "traditional Internet model" under which each party would be responsible for its own costs to upgrade an interconnection. But, "the reality of the gatekeeper power exercised by these telephone and cable companies requires that Cogent accept these additional costs in order to provide the highest quality Internet service possible."
For more:
- Cogent issued this press release
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