Can one company have many public AS numbers?

[mario_kmc]

Hi all,

I was just here thinking about thinking and I came to this question. Can one company (probably very big) have more than one public AS number?

What would be the scenarios where this would be needed? Can you provide real examples?

thanks very much

Mario

[shivjain]

Hi Mario

Yeah one company has multiple AS numbers. e.g.

Lets say a GSM provider who is offering voice and data services. For voice customers they are offering GPRS services and for data customers(SME) it's normal internet.

In this case one AS number is used for GPRS network and another AS number is used for SME internet services. The advatage of using this is that in case any black listing will happen it will not affect the other.

regards

Shivlu Jain

www.mplsvpn.info

[stephen.stack]

Hi,

Sure one company can have multiple public AS numbers. One such exmaple is Level3. Have a look at this URL and search for LEVEL3.

http://bgp.potaroo.net/cidr/autnums.html

Not sure how up to date it is, but a company might have multiple AS numbers mergers and acquisitions for example.

Regards

Stephen

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[mario_kmc]

Hi Stephen and Shivlu,

Thanks for replying and your examples. I also had a look around and understood.

I was confused because understood ASN is a set of networks but I now understand it doesn't mean It should be all networks from a company.

From what I understand (and is the case for some service providers) It may be a set of networks from multiple companies.

I also found this link and looks interesting (really didn't read it YET)

http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac123/ac147/archived_issues/ipj_9-1/autonomous_system_numbers.html

Regards

Mario Pinho