They've recently slashed their prices to even more absurdly low new levels, and are actively targetting their peers' customers, particularly in Europe. Anyone who didn't expect to see exactly this kind of fallout as a result really hasn't been paying attention.
Well considering the market isn't growing as much as it used to the only way to grow is to take business away from other people. If OT can't deal with that on the street then they should close up shop and go sell kites or something. Clearly Cogent are doing something that gives them a cost advantage otherwise they wouldn't be able to sustain this, so rather than compete with Cogent, FT try to fiddle with Cogent's costs. If I was an FT customer and I'd seen this signal I'd be phoning Cogent now for a quote. If I was Cogent I'd be getting the champers out, for FT to take this action they clearly feel threatened!
What remains to be seen from all of this is who blinks first, if anyone else jumps in at the same time, and if any of it changes anything in the marketplace.
No, it won't change anything - other than for a short period of time customers will suffer, wouldn't it be nice if we remembered about the customers.