March 31, 2004 Washington, D.C. -- Optical Internet service provider Cogent Communications Group Inc. has acquired rights to the dark fiber and other network assets that were once part of Carrier1 International S.A., through a merger with Symposium Omega Inc., which had raised $19.5 million from investors and acquired rights to this network. Symposium Omega acquired the network from GLH GmbH, a German company that purchased the assets directly from Carrier1 after Carrier1 filed for insolvency in Germany. As a result of the acquisition, Cogent will add 14 German markets to its Pan-European network, including Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Munich, making Cogent's one of the largest network footprints in the region.
"The Carrier1 network is a perfect complement to our acquisitions of LambdaNet France and LambdaNet Spain that took place in January," contends Dave Schaeffer, CEO of Cogent Communications. "Now that our footprint is essentially complete in Europe, we will focus all our energy on capturing market share with our compelling combination of high quality data transit and transport services at prices that no other provider can match."
Cogent has already connected LambdaNet France and Spain to its U.S.-based network and is completing the consolidation of all traffic to one Autonomous System (AS) number. U.S. customers have already been consolidated to AS174. Consolidation to one AS means no network hops for Internet traffic traveling anywhere on the Cogent network, whether it is European- or American-bound.
Over the next few weeks, Cogent plans to finalize and launch its complete European product set, which can be found on its website at www.cogentco.com.