AS171

AS171 is an early, low-numbered Autonomous System Number registered under ARIN to Southern Light Rail, Inc., a Georgia Tech-affiliated 501(c)(3) nonprofit that operates the Southern Crossroads (SoX) regional research-and-education network for the Southeastern United States. SoX serves as the region's connector to national research backbones such as Internet2 and ESnet, linking universities, K-12 networks, government labs, and nonprofit research institutions. The important triage point is that AS171 is currently dormant: it announces zero IPv4 and zero IPv6 prefixes and has no observed BGP peers, upstreams, or downstreams. RIPEstat reports 0 of 327 IPv4 RIS peers and 0 of 323 IPv6 RIS peers seeing any route as of 2026-06-17, and bgp.he.net and bgp.tools independently confirm zero announced space. The operationally active ASN for Southern Crossroads is AS10490 — that is the ASN with a PeeringDB record, IX presence, and live routing; AS171 appears to be a legacy/secondary number held by the same legal entity but not used for routing. No notable public abuse signal was found as of June 2026 across Spamhaus DROP/ASN-DROP, AbuseIPDB, CleanTalk, and community blocklists; with no active address space, the ASN presents no current attack surface. ARIN RDAP confirms the allocation date (2009-07-21) and last-changed date (2026-01-05); only CAIDA timed out this pass, so rank/cone remain unknown.

Operator

Southern Light Rail, Inc. (registry handle SOX-RES; Georgia Tech-affiliated 501(c)(3) nonprofit operating the Southern Crossroads / SoX R&E network) [Confirmed] — RIPEstat as-overview, https://bgp.he.net/AS171

Country / RIR

US, ARIN [Confirmed] — RIPEstat abuse-contact-finder (authoritative_rir: arin), https://bgp.tools/as/171

Allocated

2009-07-21 (ARIN RDAP autnum registration event; NOT a legacy 1988-era date — AS171 is a 2009 ARIN allocation despite the low number); registry record last changed 2026-01-05 [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP, https://rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/171

Org status

active holder (Southern Light Rail, Inc., per RIPEstat/RDAP-handle SOX-RES); ASN itself dormant [Confirmed for holder] — RIPEstat as-overview

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable public abuse signal found as of 2026-06; not present on Spamhaus DROP/ASN-DROP, AbuseIPDB, CleanTalk, or reviewed community ASN blocklists. With zero active address space the ASN has no current attack surface; the only standing consideration is the generic squatting risk of any dormant legacy ASN

Abuse / NOC contact

noc@sox.net (RIPEstat abuse-contact-finder)

Network & routing

Network type

regional Research and Education (R&E) network operator; Southeast U.S. connector to Internet2 / ESnet [Confirmed] — https://www.sox.net/about-us/, https://southernlightrail.net/history/

Size

none routed — 0 IPv4 prefixes / 0 addresses and 0 IPv6 prefixes announced; AS is allocated but routing-inactive [Confirmed] — RIPEstat routing-status (0/327 v4, 0/323 v6 RIS peers, 2026-06-17), https://bgp.he.net/AS171, https://bgp.tools/as/171

Routing/peering

no upstreams, no peers, no downstreams observed; no live BGP presence. SoX's operational peering (open policy, IRR set AS-SOX-TRANSIT) is registered under the sibling ASN AS10490, not AS171 [Confirmed for AS171 inactivity; peering policy attaches to AS10490] — https://bgp.tools/as/171, https://www.peeringdb.com/net/924

RPKI

not applicable — no prefixes announced, so no ROAs to validate; RIPEstat skipped the rpki-validation check (no prefix supplied); bgp.he.net shows 0 valid / 0 invalid origins [Confirmed] — https://bgp.he.net/AS171

Notable usage

Southern Light Rail / SoX traces to SURAnet-era R&E networking and was established as SoX in 1997; a founding-era participant in Internet2 connectivity for the Southeast, with IX presence (Atlanta) operated under AS10490. AS171 is a legacy/secondary number on the same legal entity, currently unused for routing

[Likely; heritage from operator sites] — https://southernlightrail.net/history/, https://www.sox.net/about-us/

Related ASNs

AS10490 — the operationally active Southern Crossroads (SoX) ASN with the PeeringDB record and live routing, held by the same legal entity [Confirmed] — https://www.peeringdb.com/net/924, https://bgp.he.net/AS171

Analyst note

Encountered as a low-numbered legacy ASN that is registry-active but routing-dormant; current operations live on AS10490. CAIDA timed out this pass, so rank/cone are Unknown; ARIN RDAP confirms allocation 2009-07-21 and last changed 2026-01-05.