AMSTERDAM -- Cogent Communications Group, Inc. (Amex: COI), a multinational Tier 1 Internet service provider, announced today that RUNNet, the federal network of universities across Russia, has selected Cogent as its Internet service provider. The network will be connected to Cogent through Cogent's point of presence in Amsterdam. Cogent's IP network spans over 46,600 Km and has over 85 points of presence in 12 countries. Cogent has been named the largest Ethernet Internet service provider in the United States by Ovum-RHK and continues to demonstrate its leadership position within the telecom industry.

RUNNet was put in place to provide Russian universities with a best-of-breed communications links to the Internet to facilitate the exchange of curriculum materials, studies and research data, and help RUNNet collaborate on research projects with other Russian and foreign universities.

"We needed a large amount of bandwidth to exchange large volumes of data reliably between our universities," said Yury Izhvanov First Deputy Director RUNNet. "After evaluating several providers, Cogent proved to be one of the best and the most cost effective solutions. Since so many American university networks like The Quilt, SURA, OARnet, MichNet are already connected to Cogent, it became an obvious choice for us."

"Cogent has had significant success as the Internet Service Provider of choice to the university and scientific research community in the US and Canada. It is a natural progression to extend this reach into other parts of the world and we are proud to welcome RUNNet on our network," said Dave Schaeffer, CEO of Cogent Communications. "The value of Cogent's pricing for Tier 1 Internet service provides the university community with ample bandwidth to meet the most cutting-edge and demanding needs of research today, without engulfing their IT budgets."

Cogent Communications Group Inc.