Kentik Launches Traffic Costs to Instantly Calculate Network Costs
Networks are the backbone of innovation, from AI adoption to real-time healthcare to global e-commerce. Yet, behind every seamless digital experience lies an increasingly complex challenge: how to balance performance, reliability, and cost at scale.
To explore this critical issue, we sat down with Jezzibell Gilmore, General Manager for Service Providers at Kentik, a company at the forefront of network observability and intelligence. With decades of experience in building and scaling internet infrastructure, Jezzibell brings a unique perspective on how operators can navigate soaring demand, rising costs, and the need for rock-solid reliability.
This conversation is especially timely as Kentik recently launched its groundbreaking Traffic Cost feature -an industry-first solution that gives service providers and enterprises real-time visibility into the true cost of their traffic. What does this mean for the future of networks, and how will it reshape the way businesses think about connectivity? Read on to find out.
Watch&Listen to the full interview here.
Jezzibell Gilmore
General Manager for Service Providers at Kentik
Jezzibell, you’ve been GM for Service Providers at Kentik for a year, at a time shaped by AI, volatile markets, and global turbulence. How have these changes shaped your focus at Kentik?
It’s been a whirlwind. The world looks very different today compared to a year ago. The rise of AI, economic shifts, even geopolitics—all of these directly affect how networks are built and run. And that’s where Kentik comes in. We provide the intelligence that sits behind the networks—the invisible layer that makes the digital world possible. Without that intelligence, you can’t have reliable connectivity, and without reliable connectivity, you simply can’t power things like AI adoption, remote surgery, or global e-commerce.
When you speak with network operators today, what do they tell you are the toughest challenges they’re facing in keeping up with demand and innovation?
It all comes down to balancing performance, reliability, and cost. Over the last 10 to 15 years, performance and reliability have come a long way. But at the same time, demand has grown exponentially. Think about it – streaming in ultra-HD, massive AI datasets, real-time gaming – our networks are carrying more than ever. Reliability is now business-critical: if an e-commerce platform goes down for even a minute, the losses are enormous. And cost is the third piece – yes, you can buy more capacity, but that gets very expensive. The real challenge is finding the sweet spot where performance, reliability, and cost work together, and that requires data-driven intelligence.
To address this challenge, Kentik recently introduced its Traffic Cost feature. Can you explain why this was such a difficult issue historically, and what Kentik has done to finally make it possible?
Because it solves a problem that’s been there for decades but was considered “too hard” to crack. Until now, operators didn’t have real-time visibility into the true cost of their traffic. Traffic is constantly shifting, routing decisions are dynamic, and even the same supplier can charge different rates depending on where traffic is handed off. With Traffic Cost, we finally give providers a clear, real-time view of what’s happening: which traffic is profitable, which isn’t, whether they’re routing efficiently, and where they could be saving money. It’s like turning on the lights in a room that’s been dark for years.
Once operators gain this level of real-time insight into cost, performance, and routing, what changes can they make that were previously impossible?
The biggest change is speed and confidence. What used to take weeks of manual reporting across different departments is now available instantly. By the time those old reports were ready, the data was already outdated. Now operators can reroute traffic in real time, choose better peering options, or renegotiate agreements based on live insights. Some are even reshaping their business strategy – identifying which customers or traffic types are actually profitable and doubling down there. The reaction has been amazing: customers are so excited they’re not only using it but also recommending Kentik to peers. That tells me we’ve really solved something fundamental.
Often, new solutions sound powerful but come with a heavy lift for adoption. With Traffic Cost, what does the rollout look like?
That’s the beauty of our SaaS approach. If you’re already a Kentik Flow Analytics customer, Traffic Cost is included at no extra charge. It just becomes part of your toolkit, without a painful deployment process or an extra bill attached. We believe innovation should feel seamless and deliver immediate value.
Finally, if we look ahead, the networking industry is buzzing with conversations about AI and automation. How do you see these technologies shaping Kentik’s roadmap?
AI and automation are going to fundamentally change the way networks are run. For us at Kentik, the opportunity lies in moving from reactive to proactive operations. Real-time intelligence is the starting point – once operators have instant visibility into cost, performance, and routing, they can begin predicting issues and optimizing before problems ever surface. That means rerouting traffic automatically, preventing outages, and making smarter business decisions on the fly.
What’s most exciting is seeing how our customers are already putting this into action. They’re showing us what’s possible when intelligence and automation work hand in hand – shaping not only how networks are managed, but how businesses compete. Their feedback is pushing us to think even bigger about where the roadmap goes next.