Backbone provider Cogent disconnects Russian companies

One of the largest backbone providers of the TIER-1 class, the American company Cogent, announced that it is disconnecting Russian companies from its networks. Clients were offered to pick up server hardware within a month.

The Russian publication Kommersant writes that such large Russian providers as Rostelecom, VimpelCom, MegaFon, Yandex and VK work with Cogent. That is, the company’s decision may lead to a noticeable decrease in the connectivity of the Russian segment of the Internet with the global network, which ultimately may affect the quality of access to foreign Internet services in the near future.

Cogent is one of the largest providers in the world, founded in 1999, headquartered in Washington. It belongs to the category of Tier-1 top-level communication providers that are connected to the entire Internet network exclusively through connections for which they do not pay anyone (including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, NTT and others, about ten in total). Cogent provides Internet access and data transition services over an IP-only fiber optic network, as well as hosting in data centers.

In a letter, the backbone telecom operator notified its Russian partners that it would disconnect them from its equipment on March 4, 2022. Servers of Russian companies will be left in racks for 30 days so that customers can pick them up.

Digital rights activists have criticized Cogent’s decision to disconnect itself from Russia, arguing that it could prevent Russian civilians from accessing credible information about the invasion.

Access problems, in his opinion, will first arise for services that do not have data centres in Russia, but it is not yet clear what exactly and how large-scale the consequences of the Cogent shutdown will be.

Let me remind you that we also wrote that US authorities imposed sanctions on a Russian institution associated with Triton malware, and also that the FBI and NSA discovered Drovorub malware, created by Russian Intelligence services.