AS185

AS185 is an early ARIN allocation registered to Merit Network, Inc., the Michigan nonprofit that runs America's longest-running regional research-and-education (R&E) network. Merit was founded in 1966 by three Michigan public universities — the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Wayne State University — and the ARIN handle MERIT-AS-5 marks this as the fifth autonomous system tied to the organization. Despite its pedigree, AS185 is functionally dormant today: four independent vantage points (RIPEstat routing-status, RIPEstat announced-prefixes, bgp.he.net, and bgp.tools) all confirm zero IPv4 and zero IPv6 prefixes originated as of 2026-06-18, and none of RIPE's RIS peers (0 of 327 v4, 0 of 323 v6) observe it. CAIDA records it as not seen in routing, ranks it 79,459, and reports an AS degree of zero across customers, peers, and providers, with a customer cone of just the AS itself. The ASN remains allocated and active per ARIN, with abuse contact abuse@merit.edu, but Merit's live network operations run on other ASNs — notably AS237 (MERIT-AS-14), which peers at Chicago and Michigan IXPs. AS185 is best read as a legacy/dormant allocation rather than a production network. Merit itself is historically significant: it operated the NSFNET backbone from 1987 to April 1995, was an early operational BGP deployment site, and created the RADb routing registry. No notable public abuse signal was found as of 2026-06-18; Merit is a defender-class operator that publishes routing-abuse research and runs one of the largest US network telescopes.

Operator

Merit Network, Inc. (independent nonprofit R&E network; ARIN handle MERIT-AS-5) [Confirmed] — rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/185, merit.edu/about

Country / RIR

US, ARIN [Confirmed] — ripestat abuse-contact-finder (authoritative_rir: arin)

Allocated

1988-04-28 — ARIN RDAP autnum-level registration date (last changed 2012-04-02) [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum top-level events

IANA block

AS 1–1876, assigned by ARIN (IANA 16-bit Autonomous System Numbers Registry) [Confirmed] — stat.ripe.net/data/as-overview/data.json?resource=AS185

Org status

active holder; independent nonprofit founded 1966 by the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Wayne State University; member-governed by Michigan public universities [Confirmed] — merit.edu/about/history, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_Network

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable public abuse signal found as of 2026-06-18 across searched threat feeds, blocklist repositories, and NANOG archives; Merit is a defender-class operator (runs a large network telescope / NDNT, publishes ARIN-region routing-abuse research, offers DDoS scrubbing). A direct live CIRCL/Spamhaus query was not performed [Likely] — bgpranking.circl.lu, merit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Merit-Network_Reputation-of-Networks-ARIN-Region.pdf, ipinfo.io/AS185

Network & routing

Network type

Regional Research & Education (R&E) network operator; AS185 itself is a legacy/dormant allocation [Confirmed] — merit.edu/about, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_Network

Size / routing

dormant — 0 IPv4 prefixes, 0 IPv6 prefixes, 0 announced IPs; not in the global routing table; 0 of 327 v4 and 0 of 323 v6 RIS peers see it (2026-06-18) [Confirmed] — stat.ripe.net routing-status / announced-prefixes, bgp.he.net/AS185, bgp.tools/as/185

CAIDA

AS Rank 79,459; seen-in-routing false; clique member false; AS degree 0 (customer/peer/provider all 0); customer cone = 1 ASN / 0 prefixes / 0 addresses [Confirmed] — CAIDA AS Rank (api.asrank.caida.org)

Routing/peering

no upstreams or peers observed; no PeeringDB entry for AS185 (404). Merit offers member peering (Internet2 Peer Exchange / I2PX) but no formal AS185-specific public peering policy; not practically applicable since AS185 carries no traffic

[Likely] — peeringdb.com/asn/185, merit.edu/solutions/networking-security/peering-caching/

RPKI

Unknown — RIPEstat RPKI validation requires a prefix and none are announced; no ROAs in scope, no coverage data reported [Unknown] — stat.ripe.net/data/rpki-validation/data.json?resource=AS185, bgp.tools/as/185

Notable usage

Merit operated the NSFNET backbone 1987–April 1995 (with IBM and MCI under a $39M NSF award), was an early operational BGP deployment, and created the RADb routing registry; AS185 itself is a legacy/dormant ASN

[Confirmed] — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_Network, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation_Network, merit.edu/about/history

Related ASNs

AS237 (MERIT-AS-14) — Merit's currently active production ASN, peering at Chicago/Michigan IXPs [Confirmed] — peeringdb.com/asn/237

HQ / contacts

880 Technology Drive, Suite B, Ann Arbor, MI 48108-8963, US; abuse abuse@merit.edu; technical operations@merit.edu, +1-734-527-5717 [Confirmed] — rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/185

Analyst note

A historically weighty but currently dormant ASN. WHOIS/RDAP resolves to Merit Network; live traffic runs on AS237, not AS185. RDAP timed out during canonical collection, but ARIN RDAP fields were independently confirmed by the operator angle. CAIDA lat/long of 0,0 is treated as null/unset, not a real coordinate.