AS186

AS186 is a low-numbered, ARIN-registered Autonomous System assigned to The Catholic University of America (CUA), a private nonprofit pontifical research university at 620 Michigan Avenue, NE, Washington, DC. Despite the early number, it is a small single-site campus network rather than a transit carrier: it originates just two IPv4 prefixes — 136.242.0.0/19 and the legacy 192.31.193.0/24 — for roughly 8,448 addresses, announces no IPv6, and sits behind two upstream transit providers, AS22925 (Allied Telecom Group) and AS46887 (Crown Castle Fiber, whose fiber business Zayo acquired in 2026). CAIDA models it as a pure stub: customer cone of one, zero settlement-free peers, no IXP membership, and a global AS-rank near 18,413. Routing is stable — both prefixes were continuously visible across the mid-June 2026 RIPEstat window with full IPv4 RIS visibility (327/327 peers), and the AS has been routed since at least 2007. The ARIN RDAP autnum record shows registration 1988-05-02, last modified 2021-05-28. No notable public abuse signal, BGP incident, or data breach was found for AS186 as of June 2026 — it reads as a clean, low-visibility institutional network. Note: AS186 is distinct from AS786 (Jisc/Janet, RIPE, UK), which has a much richer security record; the two should not be conflated.

Operator

The Catholic University of America (CUA); ARIN ASName CUA-AS; private nonprofit pontifical research university, 620 Michigan Avenue, NE, Washington, DC 20064 [Confirmed] — https://rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/186, https://bgp.he.net/AS186

Country / RIR

US, ARIN [Confirmed] — https://rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/186

Allocated

1988-05-02 — ARIN RDAP autnum-level registration date (last changed 2021-05-28) [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum top-level events

Org status

active holder. Contacts (ARIN): NOC Robert Dubrow; abuse Gregory Allen; tech Mohamed Lrhazi — all on the cua.edu domain, with individual mailboxes and direct lines in the ARIN RDAP record. ARIN peering admin points to peering@alliedtelecom.net, suggesting upstream Allied Telecom manages routing policy on CUA's behalf

[Confirmed] — https://rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/186, https://whois.ipip.net/AS186

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable public abuse signal found as of 2026-06-18 — no Spamhaus SBL/XBL/PBL/DROP, no AbuseIPDB bulk reports, no BGP hijack/leak, no named NANOG security thread, no reported CUA data breach (2020–2026). Higher-ed is broadly targeted (e.g., the Feb 2024 Anonymous Sudan DDoS hit Janet/AS786, a different AS), but nothing was found naming AS186

Network & routing

Network type

Education — single-site private university campus network; end-site stub, not transit [Confirmed] — https://ipinfo.io/AS186, https://bgp.he.net/AS186

Size

small — 2 IPv4 prefixes (136.242.0.0/19 ≈ 8,192 addrs + 192.31.193.0/24 = 256 addrs ≈ 8,448 total), 0 IPv6; CAIDA cone counts the /19 only (8,192) while RIPEstat announced_space reports 8,448 — https://bgp.he.net/AS186, https://ipinfo.io/AS186

Routing/peering

two upstream transit providers — AS22925 (Allied Telecom Group, LLC) and AS46887 (Crown Castle Fiber LLC; fiber business acquired by Zayo in 2026); CAIDA asnDegree.provider=2, peer=0, customer=0; no IXP membership; no public peering policy or PeeringDB record [Confirmed] — https://bgp.he.net/AS186, https://bgp.tools/as/186, https://www.zayo.com/newsroom/strengthening-the-digital-infrastructure-backbone-for-ai-zayo-completes-acquisition-of-crown-castles-fiber-solutions-business/

RPKI

not confirmed deployed — RIPEstat rpki-validation was skipped (no prefix supplied); bgp.he.net records no valid RPKI-originated prefixes; no ROA confirmed for either prefix [Likely] — https://bgp.he.net/AS186

Routing stability

both prefixes continuously visible 2026-06-04 → 2026-06-18 (RIPEstat); first routing record 2007-03-14 (136.242.0.0/16, later deaggregated to /19); last seen 2026-06-18 — https://stat.ripe.net/AS186, https://bgp.he.net/AS186

Notable usage

campus network for a mid-sized private university (~5,400 students) — student residential networking (ResNet), campus Wi-Fi, VPN, and departmental connectivity; no commercial or transit operations evident

[Confirmed] — https://technology.catholic.edu/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_University_of_America

Related ASNs

AS22925 (Allied Telecom Group — upstream), AS46887 (Crown Castle Fiber / Zayo — upstream) [Confirmed]

AS-rank / visibility

CAIDA global rank ≈ 18,413; full IPv4 RIS visibility 327/327 peers; 0/323 v6 peers; avg AS-path length 4.777 over 1,091 paths [Confirmed for rank/visibility] — https://bgp.he.net/AS186

Bogon note

bgp.he.net flags AS186 as announcing a bogon, likely the legacy pre-CIDR 192.31.193.0/24 block, which outdated filters can misidentify but which is legitimately ARIN-assigned to CUA [Likely] — https://bgp.he.net/AS186

Analyst note

CAIDA cliqueMember=true is unusual for a rank-18,413 university stub and is likely a topology-inference artifact rather than a tier-1 position — low weight. Do NOT confuse AS186 (CUA, ARIN, US) with AS786 (Jisc/Janet, RIPE, UK).