AS194

AS194 is a legacy autonomous system number registered under ARIN to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), the Boulder, Colorado nonprofit consortium that manages the NSF-funded National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Its low ASN and its ARIN registration date of 1988-05-26 place it among the earliest assigned autonomous systems, consistent with UCAR/NCAR's pioneering role in academic networking. The org handle is UCAR-1 and the autnum handle is AS194. Today AS194 is a single-homed academic stub: every routing source consulted (bgp.he.net, bgp.tools) shows it originating roughly seven prefixes — about five IPv4 (anchored on the historic 128.117.0.0/16 NCAR block) and two IPv6 — while transiting exclusively through its affiliated AS14041, also operated by UCAR, which appears as both the sole upstream and the only observed BGP peer. Routing hygiene is strong: all originated prefixes carry valid RPKI ROAs with zero invalids. UCAR/NCAR also operates the Front Range GigaPoP (FRGP), a regional research-and-education aggregation point, and AS194 is listed in the AS-FRGP AS-set. No notable public abuse signal was found as of June 2026 — AS194 is absent from Spamhaus ASN-DROP and CleanTalk, and no NANOG incident threads reference it — consistent with a clean, well-maintained federal research network. CAIDA places AS194 at AS rank 13695 with a small customer cone of 1 ASN (itself), 4 prefixes, and 66,304 addresses (asnDegree total 1: a single provider, no customers or peers) — the expected footprint for a single-homed research stub.

Operator

University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) — nonprofit consortium managing NSF's National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR); ARIN org handle UCAR-1 [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/194, ucar.edu

Country / RIR

US, ARIN [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/194

Allocated

1988-05-26 (ARIN registry autnum top-level registration event — a first-party RIR fact, NOT an IEEE date; IEEE publishes no ASN registration dates); last changed 2026-05-11 [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/194 (corroborated by A2 and A3)

Org status

US nonprofit consortium established 1959, 100+ member universities; managed by UCAR under NSF/NOAA/NASA and other federal sponsorship; headquartered in Boulder, CO [Confirmed] — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Corporation_for_Atmospheric_Research, ucar.edu

Contacts

abuse@ucar.edu (abuse); NCAR NOC ne@ucar.edu; HQ 3090 Center Green Drive, Boulder, CO 80301 (NCAR Mesa Lab at 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80305) [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/194

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable public abuse signal found as of 2026-06-19 — absent from Spamhaus ASN-DROP (430 entries checked) and CleanTalk (0 blacklisted, 0% spam); no NANOG/seclists incident threads; AbuseIPDB and OTX returned no usable data [Confirmed for the checked feeds; Unknown for AbuseIPDB/OTX] — spamhaus.org/drop/asndrop.json, cleantalk.org/blacklists/asn194

Network & routing

Network type

research and education (R&E) network; UCAR/NCAR also operates the Front Range GigaPoP (FRGP) regional aggregation point [Confirmed] — ucar.edu, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Corporation_for_Atmospheric_Research

Size

~5 IPv4 prefixes (~66,304 addresses, anchored on 128.117.0.0/16) and 2 IPv6 prefixes [Likely] — bgp.he.net/AS194, bgp.tools/as/194

Routing/peering

single-homed stub — sole upstream and only observed BGP peer is AS14041 (UCAR) [Confirmed]; no formal public peering policy page located for AS194; AS194 is listed in AS-set AS-FRGP [Likely] — bgp.he.net/AS194, bgp.tools/as/194, peeringdb.com/org/7823

RPKI

all originated prefixes RPKI-valid, zero invalids; IRR records confirmed [Confirmed] — bgp.he.net/AS194, bgp.tools/as/194

CAIDA AS rank / customer cone

AS rank 13695; customer cone 1 ASN (itself), 4 prefixes, 66,304 addresses (asnDegree total 1: provider 1, peer 0, customer 0) [Confirmed] — as.caida.org/asrank/194

Notable usage

supports NCAR supercomputing connectivity and scientific data exchange for atmospheric/Earth-system sciences; UCAR/NCAR operates FRGP and in April 2020 joined four regional R&E networks to support COVID-19 remote education, research, and clinical care

[Confirmed] — news.ucar.edu/132731, ARIN RDAP autnum/194

Related ASNs

AS14041 (UCAR) — affiliated AS serving as upstream/peer for AS194 [Confirmed] — bgp.he.net/AS194, bgp.tools/as/194

Analyst note

Encountered as an early/legacy low ASN registered to a historically significant R&E operator. The nested entity/org RDAP events (2018/2022 registrations) are POC-record artifacts, not the ASN allocation date; the autnum TOP-LEVEL registration event of 1988-05-26 is the allocated_date. CAIDA AS rank 13695; customer cone 1 ASN / 4 prefixes / 66,304 addresses.