Cogent activated a record 18,000+ enterprise fiber ports in Q4 2025, driven by dedicated internet demand in data centers and commercial towers. What Cogent's growth signals for DIA pricing.
Cogent Communications activated more than 18,000 new enterprise fiber ports in Q4 2025 — a company record — driven by demand for dedicated internet access in multi-tenant data centers and high-rise commercial towers. Cogent's on-net building strategy, which concentrates sales in structures where its fiber already reaches the basement, lets it provision service in days and price aggressively against carriers that need construction.
Cogent has long functioned as the price disruptor in the DIA market: its straightforward port pricing in on-net buildings frequently undercuts incumbent quotes by 30–50%, which makes its footprint list a useful negotiation tool even for buyers who ultimately choose another provider. A Cogent quote in hand reliably improves the incumbent's "best and final." The record quarter suggests enterprises are increasingly shopping bandwidth commodity-style — comparing per-megabit pricing across carriers rather than defaulting to the building's legacy provider.
The usual diligence still applies. On-net economics only apply if your building is actually on the list, single-homed budget DIA deserves a diverse second circuit for resilience, and support models differ meaningfully between value carriers and full-service providers. Tenants in major-metro towers and colocation facilities should confirm which carriers are on-net in their building before any renewal — the answer changes the entire negotiation. Compare Select maintains on-net building data across carriers and benchmarks every DIA quote against current transacted pricing.
Enterprise internet connectivity spans dedicated fiber (DIA), broadband coax, fixed wireless, and satellite. Dedicated Internet Access delivers symmetrical bandwidth with SLA-backed uptime and 4-hour repair windows — the standard for offices running VoIP, VDI, or cloud-first workloads. Availability is hyper-local: AT&T, Comcast Business, Lumen, and Spectrum Business each have distinct fiber footprints, so the best-value carrier at one address may not even serve the building next door. Brokers can pull availability across every carrier at once instead of quoting one at a time.
Compare the vendors covered in this space side by side in our Internet & ISP Providers comparison, with independent profiles for Comcast Business, AT&T Business, Verizon Business, Spectrum Business, Lumen Technologies, Frontier Business, Nitel, Granite Telecommunications, Windstream Enterprise, Zayo Group, Cogent Communications. Every profile includes deployment and pricing models, competitor differentiators, and a buyer's FAQ drawn from real procurement engagements.
Vendor announcements like this one are negotiation events. Licensing changes, rebrands, acquisitions, and product launches all reset the competitive landscape — and reset your leverage at renewal. Compare Select tracks how each development translates into transacted pricing across hundreds of enterprise deals, so before you accept a "best and final" quote or auto-renew an expiring agreement, benchmark it against the current market. Our brokerage service is free to buyers: we shortlist the two or three vendors that genuinely fit your environment, coordinate demos, and run the pricing negotiation across competing suppliers, while you contract directly with the vendor you choose.
Read more enterprise IT analysis in the Tech Hub, compare vendors in the vendor directory, or explore current market trends. For a free, vendor-neutral recommendation, talk to a Compare Select advisor.