AS8021 PCNET

PCNET — Paradigm Communications, Inc. of Cheshire, Connecticut, an internet

service provider that registered this AS number with ARIN in 1996. Its dial-up

and access customers, based around Hartford, were **acquired by NETPLEX in

September 2002**, and what survives today is a vestigial routing presence.

What it's used for

• Unclear, honestly. The AS announces a single /24 (208.24.198.0/24) with no reverse DNS on it, behind exactly one upstream: AS6062, NETPLEX — the very company that bought Paradigm's customer base.

Notable

• The /24 is not Paradigm's own address space. It sits inside 208.0.0.0/11, a Cogent Communications direct allocation, so it is provider-assigned space routed on a legacy AS number rather than a legacy address holding.
• With no rDNS, no downstreams and one prefix, there is nothing in the inventory that honestly supports a kind label — access, hosting or otherwise. It is left unclassified rather than guessed at, and addresses in it should not be geolocated or typed from the holder's 1990s ISP identity.
• Name trap: PCNET here is Paradigm's old pcnet.com domain. It is unrelated to PCNet, Inc. of Trumbull, Connecticut, which holds the trademark, and unrelated to PCNet International of British Columbia. Paradigm's own former site says so explicitly.

Interesting

• A 1996 two-byte AS number, still announced, for one borrowed /24. Low AS numbers rarely die; they just get very quiet.