AS246

AS246 is a legacy autonomous system number registered under ARIN to Air Force Systems Networking (AFSN), a U.S. Air Force / Department of Defense organization headquartered at Gunter Annex, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. The ARIN autnum record dates the allocation to 1988-10-27, placing AS246 among the oldest ASNs in the ARIN registry, with a last-changed timestamp of 2009-02-05. The AS name ASIFICS-GW-AS suggests a legacy gateway node for an Air Force integrated communications system; the precise expansion of the ASIFICS acronym could not be confirmed in open sources. The key triage point for AS246 is that it is effectively dormant today: RIPEstat reports the ASN announces zero IPv4 and zero IPv6 prefixes and is seen by 0 of 327 RIS v4 peers and 0 of 324 RIS v6 peers as of 2026-06-20, while CAIDA AS Rank places it at 79,459 with a degree of 0 (zero peers, upstreams, and customers) and a singleton customer cone. Historical routing was visible from 2002-02-07 (first seen 192.67.209.0/24) through 2021-11-29 (last seen 139.241.178.0/23), after which the ASN withdrew from the global table. Administrative and abuse handling is delegated to the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) at Columbus, Ohio. No notable public abuse signal was found as of June 2026 — Scamalytics rates the AFSN ISP 0/100 for fraud risk, and AS246 is absent from Spamhaus DROP/ASN-DROP and NANOG abuse archives — consistent with a clean, dormant ASN held by a U.S. military operator.

Operator

Air Force Systems Networking (AFSN), U.S. Air Force / DoD (ARIN registrant handle 7ESG, Gunter Annex, Maxwell AFB, AL) [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/246

AS name

ASIFICS-GW-AS [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/246

Country / RIR

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

Allocated

1988-10-27 (ARIN RDAP autnum top-level registration event — first-party RIR fact, NOT an IEEE date); last changed 2009-02-05 [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/246 top-level events

Org status

U.S. federal government military unit (U.S. Air Force); AFSN provides network implementation and sustainment for Air Force data communications; administered via DISA Columbus [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/246, peeringdb.com/org/20118

Contacts

abuse/admin disa.columbus.ns.mbx.arin-registrations@mail.mil (DISA Columbus, 300 North James Road, Whitehall, OH 43213; +1-844-347-2457 ext.2); registrant address 501 East Moore Dr, Bldg 884 Rm 1100, Gunter Annex, Maxwell AFB, AL 36114 [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/246

Website

Unknown — no public-facing operator website for AS246/AFSN is linked in ARIN RDAP or PeeringDB [Unknown] — ARIN RDAP autnum/246

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable public abuse signal found as of 2026-06-20 — Scamalytics rates the AFSN ISP 0/100 fraud risk; not on Spamhaus DROP/ASN-DROP; no AS246-specific NANOG threads; DoD abuse reporting runs through government channels

Network & routing

Network type

U.S. military / government (DoD) network; AS246 is legacy/dormant — not present in the global routing table [Confirmed] — RIPEstat routing-status, ipinfo.io/AS246, bgp.tools/as/246

Size

dormant — 0 IPv4 prefixes / 0 IPv4 addresses and 0 IPv6 prefixes; customer cone = 1 ASN (itself), 0 prefixes, 0 addresses [Confirmed] — RIPEstat routing-status / CAIDA AS Rank (2026-06-20)

Routing/peering

NOT announced — 0 RIS peers seeing it (0/327 v4, 0/324 v6); CAIDA degree total 0 (customer 0, peer 0, provider 0); observed neighbours 0 [Confirmed] — RIPEstat routing-status / CAIDA AS Rank. No public peering policy published (DoD networks generally do not) [Unknown] — peeringdb.com/org/20118

Historical routing

first seen 2002-02-07 (192.67.209.0/24), last seen 2021-11-29 (139.241.178.0/23) [Confirmed] — RIPEstat routing-status

RPKI

not assessable — AS246 announces no prefixes, so there are no active ROAs to validate [Confirmed] — RIPEstat rpki-validation (skipped, no prefix)

Notable usage

legacy gateway ASN ('ASIFICS-GW-AS') tied to Air Force Systems Networking at Gunter Annex; the ASIFICS acronym's full expansion is not confirmed in open sources; AFSN's active networks use other ASNs [Likely] — ARIN RDAP, ipinfo.io/AS246, bgp.tools/as/246

Related ASNs

AFSN's PeeringDB org (20118) lists AS65, AS123, AS175, AS221, AS301 as active networks [Confirmed] — peeringdb.com/org/20118

Analyst note

Encountered as a dormant legacy ASN registered to a U.S. Air Force / DoD unit; one of the oldest ASNs in the ARIN registry (1988). Live announcements ceased around late 2021; clean, inactive ASN.