Cogent Communications

Cogent Communications

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  • Our Environment

Our Environment

Who We Are and Our Journey to Understand and Improve our Footprint

We are a leading ISP providing service in 50 countries with on-net operations in over 216 metropolitan markets which receive and deliver traffic to network operations located in over 3,000 buildings. We are a Tier 1 ISP and believe we have a leading share of the traffic transmitted over the Internet.  We are a leading provider of IP transit services to important content providers including OTT video streamers and we serve over 7,500 access networks which provide Internet access to the vast majority of the world’s broadband and mobile phone subscribers. If you recently watched a movie over a streaming platform it probably traveled over our network. We believe that traffic on our network has grown by over 32.7% per year on a compounded annual basis since 2017 as a result of our network breadth, reliability and competitive prices.

A key part of our operating strategy has been to position ourselves as the low cost provider in our industry.  We measure our cost position and improvements by measuring our costs of network services relative to the amount of Bytes transmitted on our network.  Since 2017, we have reduced our cost of network services per Bytes transmitted at a 23.3% compounded annual rate of reduction. 

Another important component of our operating strategy has been to lease rather than buy the vast majority of our real estate assets.  This strategy reduces the capital intensity of our operations and enhances our flexibility to grow or reduce the footprint of our operations based upon demand.  As a result of this strategy, we rely in most cases on the landlord or data center operator to arrange for the delivery of electricity to power our operations.  Virtually all of this electricity is Scope 2 in nature--that is it is produced remotely and delivered through electric grid infrastructure.  Because of these leasing arrangements, we therefore do not create that power on our own nor do we have the ability in most cases to arrange the sourcing of that electricity.  Back-up power supplies are also usually arranged by the same third party thereby limiting our ability to determine the sourcing of that electricity.

While we recognize that we have limited ability to determine the source of the electricity that powers our main network operations, we have developed a series of objectives designed to measure and reduce our per Bytes transmitted of Costs of Network Services, Capital Expenditures, electricity usage and Green House Gas (“GHG”) emissions.  Important components of this effort include:

Detailed, Bottoms Up Measurement and Improvement of Our Primary Internet Backbone

Our engineering team, working in conjunction with our equipment suppliers, has developed detailed specifications of the amount of electrical power used by each piece of equipment on our network.  Combining this data with our daily network inventory records allows us to calculate the total energy consumed on any given day at each of our 3,000 network locations and network traffic records enables us to calculate the total traffic volume carried across the network at the same interval. Locational data combined with carbon factor information provides us estimates of the GHG emissions emitted across our network as a result of our network activity.  Based upon these calculations which solely estimates our network operations and associated overhead, we used in 2021 approximately 61.7 million kWh to power our network and we estimate that this power usage emitted approximately 18,395 mt CO2e of GHG.  We intend to use this transmission data to strategically measure, analyze and over time to reduce, on a per Byte basis, the amount of electricity we use and the GHG we emit. 

Below is a table outlining data regarding our network transmission volume related to our costs of network services, capital expenditures, estimated kWh consumed and estimated amount of GHG emissions all these ratios indexed to 2017:

Cogent Network Transmission Efficiency Metrics
(Traffic Volume Indexed to 2017 equal to 100)
Annual Cost of Network Services, Capital Expenditures, Electricity, and GHG Emissions are divided by Annual Traffic Volume with 2017 as the Base Year Equal to 100
  Traffic Volume Cost of Network Services Capital Expenditures Electricity (kWh Consumed) GHG Emissions
2017 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
2018 139.1 75.4 78.4 83.3 82.3
2019 183.5 57.2 55.6 70.1 63.8
2020 253.4 41.2 48.3 55.1 45.8
2021 310.4 34.6 49.2 48.3 37.2
CAGR 32.7% -23.3% -16.7% -16.6% -21.9%

Certain assumptions regarding the table:

1) Traffic volume represents the amount of Bytes carried by our network backbone over an entire calendar period.
2) Traffic volume is indexed to 2017 as the base year equaling 100. For 2017, the other statistics are also indexed to 100 for the ratio of those statistics to traffic volume. The output in the table for the Cost of Network Services, Capital Expenditures, kWh Consumed and GHG Emissions represents the amount of each used relative to the amount of traffic carried.  .  A number lower than 100 indicates that Cogent is utilizing less of that input per traffic volume.
3) Cost of Network Services and Capital Expenditures represents the amount spent by Cogent for the corresponding fiscal year. kWh Consumed and GHG Emissions represent kWh hours and mt CO2E, respectively.
4) kWh Consumed is an estimation of the entire amount of electricity consumed by Cogent to run its Internet Backbone network. This figure includes detailed, bottoms up estimates of the power consumption per network equipment based upon Bytes transmitted. In addition, there is a 50% overhead addition in order to estimate the additional power usage associated with HVAC, lighting and other activities.  This figure does not include the amount of electricity consumed by Cogent to operate its own Cogent Data Centers (see below) and other associated operations including sales offices and administrative offices.; Cogent did not include these numbers in order to provide a more precise figure as to the energy required to run its Network backbone and to focus its efforts on reducing electricity and carbon emissions from this important activity.
5) GHG Emissions is an estimate of the carbon produced by Cogent’s Internet Backbone. kWh production by network equipment, by location, is multiplied by a Carbon Factor for the geographic location reported by certain governmental agencies including the US EPA eGrid Report. This calculation provides an estimate of the amount of Carbon produced by each piece of network equipment plus an overhead factor of 50% to reflect other power usage for HVAC, lighting and other requirements.  Reported Carbon Factors for 2018 were used for 2016 and 2017 as suitable Carbon Factors were not available for those years.  Carbon Factors estimates the amount of carbon produced per kWh for certain countries and in the case of the United States, Canada and Australia certain states and provinces.  Certain countries which did not report its Carbon Factors during these periods were given estimates based upon adjacent countries and later reporting factors.  These countries accounted for less than 5% of Cogent’s reported Carbon emissions.

Increasing Our Sourcing of Renewable Energy

In December of 2020, we signed a contract to fund the construction of a 1 Megawatt solar array at one of our largest data centers in Pasadena, California. The projected 2.0 million kWh of annual electricity production at this facility should reduce our production of GHG emissions by approximately 185 mt CO2e per year when operational.  Construction commenced in 2021 and we are expecting the solar array to be operational in the Summer. We are limited in our ability to develop additional solar arrays or other renewable projects at our existing facilities due to the limited size of these facilities.  Lease terms also limit the economics of renewable projects as they typically require a longer time horizon versus our existing lease terms.  In another sourcing strategy we have begun to purchase and source renewable energy on a virtual basis through the purchase of Renewable Electricity Certificates (“RECs”).  In 2021, we reduced our GHG emissions by approximately 1,593 mt CO2e as a result of purchasing RECs. 

Adding LEED Certified Buildings to Our Network

Of the approximately 1,822 MTOBs we currently occupy, over 41% are LEED certified at least Bronze or better status.  LEED certified buildings meet a series of environmental standards that insure that the footprint and operations of the building take into account methods that can increase efficiency and reduce GHG emissions.  Selecting LEED certified buildings when evaluating new buildings is one of the drivers of deciding whether to extend our network to those buildings.

Work with CNDC Operators to Accelerate Renewable Strategies

At 1,359 we have the largest portfolio of CNDC colocations of any carrier in the world. As a large tenant across multiple CNDCs, we believe we can work with these operators to help understand and promote their sustainability strategies. In 2021, we reached out to our five largest CNDC operators and engaged with them to better understand their sustainability strategies. Most of them have pledged to become carbon neutral over the next decade and each has already made substantial progress in sourcing and offering power from renewable sources. In 2021 alone, we estimate that in working with these CNDC operators we have identified the reduction of almost 4,600 mt CO2e of GHG emissions. Indeed, we estimate that despite a significant increase in traffic generation in 2021 versus 2020 and the addition of over 100 new CNDCs that our GHG emissions created as a result of our internet backbone activity declined by over 100 metric tons. There is more to do. We now make understanding the renewable strategies of operators an important part of our decision making process for entering new CNDCs. We also intend on broadening the number of CNDCs we engage with regarding their renewable strategies. As a major tenant in CNDCs we can help place the need to reduce our carbon footprint at the forefront of our network and strategic discussions.

Improve our own Data Center GHG Emissions Performance

In addition to operating one of the largest IP transit networks in the world we also operate 54 of our own data centers in the United States and Europe with a footprint of 609,000 square feet. The vast majority of these facilities are leased and virtually all of the facilities source Scope 2 electricity that is arranged and billed by our landlords. In 2021, we consumed approximately 64.2 mm kWh in these facilities and we estimate that this electricity production produced GHG emissions of 15,327 mt CO2e on a location basis and 13,733 mt CO2e on a market basis—that is by purchasing Renewable Energy Certificates we were able to reduce our estimated GHG emissions by approximately 1,593 mt CO2e. This data is separate and incremental from our data listed above in connection with our Network Transmission activities. We intend to explore additional opportunities to reduce our GHG emissions in these facilities either on our own or in coordination with landlords. For example, we have engaged with building efficiency experts to do a physical review of our data centers and to determine if there are opportunities to reduce our electricity usage. The initial conclusions from these walk-throughs are encouraging. We have also begun to analyze whether we can share our back-up power supply systems with local utilities during peak power load times. This partnership enables the utility to reduce its peak load capacity thereby reducing their overall carbon footprint.

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Cogent Communications

  • Cogent es uno de los operadores de Internet más grandes del mundo, ofreciendo servicios de Internet, Ethernet y Colocación de alta calidad, en más de 96.320 clientes Empresariales y NetCentric, en 219 ciudades y 51 países, a través de su red IP óptica de próxima generación.
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