We manage a number of servers located in a cogent facility that serves up 100's of web sites. We've never had any issues with their bandwidth, speeds and the pricing our client gets is great.
I think cogent often gets a bad rap due to how budget providers use them for transit. I have seen many budget providers route the majority of their outbound traffic along their cogent lines. The traffic is often routed back to a main cogent facility before peering kicks in and the connection is handed off to another network. This routing is likely not the most efficient but is often the least expensive. I suspect it is this practice that gives Cogent a bad reputation.
By comparison, we manage some equipment in the PAIX in NYC. Those servers are 3 hops away from the router that handles the peering. The network provider has scores of peers, including the major teir 1 providers. As a result, we find that the routes are very efficient. The teir 1 provider prefers to route traffic along their own fiber but if things are slow, we do see different routes.
