Optical Internet service provider Cogent Communications, Inc., has launched its service in Houston, Tex., the 11th market currently servicing customers. Cogent set up two hub sites in Houston at 333 Clay Street and 3 Greenway Plaza to support a high volume of traffic and is currently building out its network to serve a backlog of over 80 customers throughout the Houston central business district.

The Washington, D.C.-based Cogent provides service to commercial end-users in multi-tenant office buildings and service providers located in central business districts or business corridors of major cities throughout the United States. In addition to Houston, Cogent serves the Dallas, Washington, D.C., Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Denver, Kansas City, Boston, Santa Clara, and San Francisco markets.

Cogent's facilities-based, all-optical end-to-end IP network allows non-oversubscribed 100 Mbps and 1000 Mbps connectivity for low, unmetered pricing levels.

"There are a lot of businesses in Houston that are interested in significantly reducing their Internet expenses by signing on with Cogent," said Dave Schaeffer, chief executive officer and founder of Cogent. "As the fourth largest city in the nation, Houston is an important market for Cogent to support. With a mix of hi-tech, medical research and a multitude of colleges and universities, Houston is an opportunity market for a high bandwidth provider like Cogent that offers the lowest price per non-oversubscribed megabit of Internet