Autonomous system
AS237 MERIT-AS-14
Unclassified ARIN Educational/Research
Summary
Merit Network
research education nren legacy
Merit Network is a non-profit research and education network serving Michigan — and one of the most historically important organizations on the internet.
What it's used for
- Backbone and internet connectivity for Michigan's universities, schools, libraries, and government (R&E, not consumer).
Notable
- Merit operated the routing and engineering of the NSFNET backbone in the late 1980s and early 1990s — the network that grew into the modern internet — in partnership with IBM and MCI.
- Still a live, member-governed non-profit today, not a relic.
Interesting
- Founded in 1966, Merit predates the internet itself; its name comes from "Michigan Educational Research Information Triad."
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 2 exchanges in 1 country, largest first.
| Exchange | Location | Their address |
|---|---|---|
| Equinix Internet Exchange Chicago | Chicago, United States | 208.115.136.39 |
| Detroit Internet Exchange | Detroit, United States | 209.124.52.12 |
Transit providers
9 upstream, 34 downstream and 56 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 2026-10-31, licensed CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. Transit is inferred from observed BGP paths, never declared by either party.
Address space
Summary
IPv4 138 prefixes · 2.21M addresses IPv6 33 prefixes
| Country | Name | Prefixes |
|---|---|---|
| US | United States of America | 171 |
Registry
Allocation record
- Registry
- ARIN
- Handle
AS237- Registry name
- MERIT-AS-14
- Registrant
- Merit Network Inc.
- Abuse contact
- abuse@merit.edu
- Registered
- 1988-09-12
- Last changed
- 2026-09-21
- Allocation
- assigned
Declared
PeeringDB profile
- Name
- Merit Network
- Also known as
- Merit
- Network type
- Educational/Research
- Scope
- Regional
- Traffic ratio
- Mostly Inbound
- Peering policy
- Selective
- IRR as-set
RADB::AS-MICHNET- Present at
- 4 exchanges
- Facilities
- 6 facilities
- Website
- http://www.merit.edu
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
- 64% valid · 59 valid, 33 with no ROA
- ROAs
- 68 authorising AS237
- ASPA
- no ASPA record
- IRR
- 100% registered · 92 of 92 announcements
- Route objects
- 99 naming AS237
Reputation
Classification and threat
Unclassified Not in the curated lists. Most of the ~80,000 allocated ASNs are not.
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: 447 networks and 1,845 prefixes, as published 2026-10-31. 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