AS7676 TAM TAM-Internet Service T.A.M Co., Ltd.

TAM is T.A.M Co., Ltd., a cable-television and internet operator based in Kamiichi, Toyama Prefecture. It runs its own ISP under the Tamnet name and provides internet service for cable-TV networks in the surrounding Namerikawa, Kamiichi and Tateyama area.

What it's used for

• Roughly 40,000 addresses across twenty-three prefixes, plus three IPv6 /32 blocks.
• Reverse DNS is cable-subscriber addressing almost everywhere, on several regional cable brands at once: pc.NNN.NNN.NNN.NNN.nice-tv.jp, cNbNN-NNN.net3-tv.net and pc-NNN-NNN-NN-NN.milale.ne.jp. The pc. prefix on customer-premises equipment is about as unambiguous an eyeball signal as reverse DNS gets.
• The company also sells IP telephony and operates as a mobile virtual network operator.

Notable

• A residential network, and a genuinely small-town one. The name gives away nothing; the rDNS gives away everything. Addresses here should geolocate to towns in Toyama Prefecture, not to a corporate headquarters.
• Watch the address count: 40,000 addresses across twenty-three prefixes is a lot of blocks for a rural cable operator, because it aggregates the space of several separate community cable networks.

Interesting

• The Net3 cable business was a public-sector broadcaster until 2021, when T.A.M acquired its assets outright and privatised it — a late example of a Japanese municipal cable-TV association being handed to a commercial operator.