Autonomous system
AS16637 MTNNS-AS
Mobile AFRINIC NSP
Summary
MTN (South Africa)
isp mobile eyeball
MTN (MTNNS-AS) — a South Africa-based mobile operator and one of Africa's largest telecom groups.
What it's used for
- Mobile data and broadband in South Africa, and — through the wider MTN Group — across many African and Middle Eastern countries (each via its own networks).
Notable
- A major African "eyeball" network; MTN is one of the continent's biggest operators by subscribers.
Interesting
- MTN's pan-African expansion made mobile internet the primary — often the only — way many of its customers get online, skipping fixed broadband entirely.
This description is AI-generated, best-effort context — not authoritative, and provided without any guarantee of accuracy. Source, and how to suggest an edit.
Interconnection
Peering at a glance
Internet exchanges
Recorded at 12 exchanges in 7 countries, largest first.
| Exchange | Location | Their address |
|---|---|---|
| LINX LON1 | London, United Kingdom | 195.66.224.18 |
| AMS-IX Amsterdam | Amsterdam, Netherlands | 80.249.208.117 |
| NAPAfrica IX Johannesburg | Johannesburg, South Africa | 196.60.8.62 |
| NAPAfrica IX Cape Town | Cape Town, South Africa | 196.60.70.62 |
| Johannesburg Internet Exchange | Johannesburg, South Africa | 196.60.96.18 |
| Kenya Internet Exchange Point - Nairobi | Nairobi, Kenya | 196.223.21.107 |
| NAPAfrica IX Durban | Durban, South Africa | 196.10.141.62 |
| Cape Town Internet Exchange | Cape Town, South Africa | 196.223.22.31 |
Transit providers
27 upstream, 49 downstream and 126 adjacent networks observed; most-used upstreams first.
Exchange presence is recorded rather than inferred: the directory collected by Packet Clearing House (https://www.pch.net/ixp/data) on 2026-10-26, licensed CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. Transit is inferred from observed BGP paths, never declared by either party.
Address space
Summary
IPv4 218 prefixes · 2.47M addresses IPv6 10 prefixes
| Country | Name | Prefixes |
|---|---|---|
| ZA | South Africa | 228 |
Registry
Allocation record
- Registry
- AFRINIC
- Handle
AS16637- Registry name
- ORG-VSA1-AFRINIC
- Registrant
- MTN SA
- Registered
- 2005-02-21
- Last changed
- 2026-09-18
- Allocation
- allocated
Declared
PeeringDB profile
- Name
- MTN South Africa
- Also known as
- Bayobab Group (Formally MTN GlobalConnect)
- Network type
- NSP
- Scope
- Global
- Peering policy
- Open
- IRR as-set
AS-MTN-TRANSIT- Present at
- 13 exchanges
- Facilities
- 13 facilities
- Website
- https://www.mtn.com
PeeringDB records are maintained by the network operator and are not independently verified. Treat them as a statement of intent rather than of fact. For the observed and recorded view, see peering, which lists the exchanges Packet Clearing House has a port on file for.
Routing security
RPKI and IRR
- RPKI
- 89% valid · 195 valid, 25 with no ROA
- ROAs
- 26 authorising AS16637
- ASPA
- no ASPA record
- IRR
- 93% registered · 204 of 220 announcements 2 other origin
- Route objects
- 655 naming AS16637
Reputation
Classification and threat
Mobile Cellular carrier. Addresses are shared by many handsets via CGNAT.
Spamhaus DROP
Not on ASN-DROP The network as a whole is not listed.
No DROP prefixes None of its announced space is on the DROP prefix list.
Spamhaus DROP ("Don't Route Or Peer") lists space and networks run by, or hijacked for, spam and cybercrime operations: 446 networks and 1,852 prefixes, as published 2026-10-27. A short, high-confidence list, so a match is worth taking seriously, and absence from it says little on its own.
FBI IC3
No IC3 indicators Nothing from the FBI IC3 feed.
IC3 threat data is alpha. Absence of an indicator is not evidence of good behaviour, only of absence from this one feed.
Elsewhere