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

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.