AS230

AS230 is a legacy autonomous system number registered under ARIN to Merit Network, Inc., the nonprofit research-and-education (R&E) network founded in 1966 and governed by Michigan's public universities — Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, and Wayne State University. The ASN carries notable historical weight: Merit operated the NSFNET backbone, the direct predecessor of the modern commercial Internet, from 1987 to 1995 under a National Science Foundation award; it founded NANOG, the North American Network Operators' Group, in 1994; and it still operates RADb, one of the largest public Internet Routing Registries. The key triage point for AS230 is that it is effectively dormant today. The ARIN RDAP autnum top-level registration event dates AS230 to 1988-09-12, making it one of the earliest ASN registrations globally; the record was last changed 2012-04-02. Every routing source consulted (bgp.he.net, bgp.tools) agrees that AS230 announces zero IPv4 and zero IPv6 prefixes, has no visible BGP peers, no upstreams, and no RPKI-valid originations. Merit's active operational routing runs under AS237, which peers via the Internet2 Peer Exchange (I2PX) with major content and cloud providers. RPKI posture cannot be meaningfully assessed for AS230 because there are no active originations and therefore no ROAs. No notable public abuse signal was found as of June 2026 — AS230 is absent from Spamhaus ASN-DROP (the lowest ASN in that dataset is 245), and no BGP hijack, spam, botnet, or NANOG security-thread history surfaced — consistent with a clean, dormant ASN held by a respected R&E operator.

Operator

Merit Network, Inc. (nonprofit R&E network; ARIN registrant handle MICH-Z, Ann Arbor, MI) [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP, merit.edu/about

Country / RIR

US, ARIN [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/230 (handle AS230, port43 whois.arin.net)

Allocated

1988-09-12 (ARIN registry date from the autnum top-level registration event, NOT an IEEE date — IEEE publishes no ASN registration dates); last changed 2012-04-02 [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum top-level events

Org status

active independent nonprofit corporation (Merit Network), governed by Michigan's public universities; founded 1966 as the Michigan Educational Research Information Triad [Confirmed] — merit.edu/about, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_Network

Contacts

abuse@merit.edu / +1-734-527-5740; admin ipreg@merit.edu / +1-734-763-3448; technical operations@merit.edu / +1-734-527-5717; HQ 880 Technology Drive, Suite B, Ann Arbor, MI 48108 [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/230 entity vcards

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable public abuse signal found as of 2026-06-19 — absent from Spamhaus ASN-DROP (lowest listed ASN is 245), no BGP hijack/route-leak record, no botnet/C2 or spam listings, and no NANOG security threads naming AS230; dormant ASN under a respected R&E operator — spamhaus.org/drop/asndrop.json, seclists.org/nanog

Network & routing

Network type

regional research and education (R&E) network; AS230 is legacy/inactive (Merit's active network runs under AS237) [Confirmed] — merit.edu/about, bgp.tools/as/230

Size

dormant — 0 IPv4 prefixes / 0 IPv4 addresses and 0 IPv6 prefixes; no customer cone data available for an inactive ASN — bgp.he.net / bgp.tools (2026-06)

Routing/peering

NOT announced — 0 IPv4 prefixes, 0 IPv6 prefixes, no upstreams, no peers visible in any source [Confirmed]. Merit's active AS237 peers via the Internet2 Peer Exchange (I2PX) with AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google, Netflix, Apple, Facebook, Comcast, AT&T and 100+ providers; peering contact peering@merit.edu [Likely for AS237 policy]

RPKI

not assessable — AS230 announces no prefixes, so there are no ROAs to validate; bgp.he.net shows 0 RPKI-valid and 0 RPKI-invalid origins [Confirmed]

Notable usage

Merit operated the NSFNET backbone (1987–1995), founded NANOG (1994), and operates RADb (IRR); it runs 4,000+ miles of fiber in Michigan and the Michigan Cyber Range. AS230 (MERIT-AS-7) is an early/legacy Merit ASN; active infrastructure now runs under AS237 — merit.edu/about, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_Network

Related ASNs

AS237 (Merit's active operational network); Merit holds additional ASNs (e.g. AS229, AS181–185, AS232–233, AS235–238, AS690, others) [Confirmed for AS237; Likely for the broader block list per third-party DB]

Analyst note

Encountered as a dormant legacy ASN registered to a historically significant R&E operator; WHOIS resolves to Merit Network, but live routing is under AS237, not AS230. Clean, inactive ASN.