When slow downloads hit an app developer, only Comcast customers suffered

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App developer Panic Inc. knew it had a network problem when customers began complaining about trouble downloading and updating Panic apps. "Geez, your downloads are really slow!" was the common complaint that started coming in a few months ago, Panic co-founder Cabel Sasser explained.

But once the mystery cleared up, it all made sense. Panic and its users were the innocent victims of a longstanding network interconnection battle between cable ISP Comcast and Cogent, which operates a global network that carries traffic across the Internet. Cogent founder and CEO Dave Schaeffer said that Comcast still delays capacity upgrades, though not to the same extent as a few years ago. Comcast generally takes 90 days to add ports after Cogent alerts Comcast that ports are becoming congested, he said.


When slow downloads hit an app developer, only Comcast customers suffered