Cogent Pushes for AT&T Congestion Commitment

Cogent Communications is renewing its request that the FCC require AT&T to keep broadband interconnection points clear as part of its proposed takeover of DirecTV. "The quality of [consumers' broadband] connection ... depends entirely on AT&T's interconnections with the edge providers that provide such content or their intermediaries that deliver the content AT&T customers select," the Internet service provider said in comments posted Wednesday in docket 14-90. Ensuring AT&T's network can handle such traffic won't require unlimited network augmentation, merely additional ports -- costing $10,000 per 10 Gbps port -- and slightly more space and power to run them, Cogent said, saying AT&T not committing to some kind of congestion elimination plan "calls into question their pledge to ensure unimpeded broadband service."