I don’t entirely agree with W. Hodding Carter, the author of a quirky history of pipes and drains called “Flushed: How the Plumber Saved Civilization.”

“I like plumbing,” Mr. Carter declared, “the art, the science, the craft and the history — for the simple reason that it is so undeniably important and necessary.”

I don’t like plumbing. And I don’t like to think about it — not until it’s broken, at which point I care about it a great deal.

That’s why, until recently, I didn’t pay much attention to Cogent Communications, either. After all, it’s a modest-size company in an arcane business involving plumbing of a virtual sort. Cogent controls many of the fiber pipes and digital interconnections that make up the basic plumbing of the Internet. But that has made the company’s shares hostage to the net neutrality wars — a battle of principles that, at its most tangible level, involves the ebb and flow of Internet plumbing.