AS16700 CNSNEXT

A customer account number sits inside two registrant fields, in brackets, in public.

What it's used for

• A provider's network. Twelve IPv4 prefixes and one IPv6 prefix announced from the United States, thirty- eight thousand four hundred addresses, through nine observed BGP neighbours.

Notable

• Four blocks are the holder's own and carry the holder's name as their netname.
• Five belong to a differently named company under one scheme: four letters, then the brand, then three letters for dynamic and three for customer equipment, then a counter running from two to six with no first entry.
• Two of those five append an account number in brackets to the registrant name.
• One block belongs to a state technical college system, listed with a role contact rather than a person, and one to a large carrier with a four-letter contact code.
• Ten of eighteen queried addresses answered across two domains, one of which appears in no netname at all. Some names give the address in dotted order; others give only its last two parts behind two letters.

Interesting

• An account number in a public registrant field is a billing system writing where a name belongs. It identifies the contract rather than the company, and it is exactly as durable as the contract.
• A counter that starts at two suggests the first block left the announcement, or was never labelled.
• A college system's block inside a provider's announcement is how public institutions get connectivity: the addresses stay theirs, the routing belongs to somebody else.