AS271

AS271 is a legacy autonomous system number registered under ARIN to BCNET, the not-for-profit, member-governed research-and-education (R&E) network that serves British Columbia's post-secondary and research institutions. It is one of Canada's oldest ASNs: the ARIN RDAP autnum top-level registration event dates to 1989-02-24, with the registry record last changed 2012-04-02. BCNET operates as the British Columbia anchor of CANARIE, Canada's National Research and Education Network, directly connecting member colleges, universities, institutes, and federal/provincial research labs across the province from its registered address at 750–555 Seymour Street, Vancouver, BC. The ASN is active and well-routed: it takes transit from a small set of upstreams — AS1299 (Arelion/Telia), AS6327 (Shaw), AS6509 (CANARIE), and AS6939 (Hurricane Electric) — and originates roughly 80–200 IPv4 prefixes and ~38 IPv6 prefixes depending on the observing source and time window (bgp.tools 81 v4, bgp.he.net 192 v4, RIPEstat 47 v4 — normal BGP visibility differences). Peering policy is open (no location, ratio, or contract requirements), and BCNET is present at VANIX (AS2499) with dual 100G connections. RPKI posture is strong: the large majority of announced prefixes carry valid ROAs (~109 ROAs per bgp.he.net), with a single RPKI-invalid IPv6 prefix noted. No notable public abuse signal was found as of 2026-06-21 — not in Spamhaus DROP/ASN-DROP, abuse.ch feeds, NANOG abuse archives, or BGP hijack incident databases — and Qrator Radar reports zero route leaks and zero hijacks, consistent with a clean, long-established R&E operator. The ASN carries a VPN flag on IPinfo, expected for an academic network offering faculty/student VPN access.

Operator

BCNET (British Columbia Network), a not-for-profit member-governed R&E organization; ARIN org handle BC-Z, registered at 750–555 Seymour Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 3H6, Canada [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/271, bc.net

Country / RIR

CA, ARIN [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/271, bgp.tools/as/271

Allocated

1989-02-24 (ARIN autnum top-level registration event — a first-party RIR fact, NOT an IEEE date; IEEE publishes no ASN dates); last changed 2012-04-02 [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum top-level events

Org status

active not-for-profit, member-centric organization serving B.C.'s higher education and research sector; 35+ year operating history; member-led governance, open peering [Confirmed] — bc.net, bc.net/about

Contacts

abuse bcnet-arin-abuse@bc.net; NOC noc@bc.net; tel +1-604-822-1348 [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum/271

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable public abuse signal found as of 2026-06-21 — not in Spamhaus DROP/ASN-DROP, abuse.ch, NANOG abuse archives, or BGP hijack databases; Qrator Radar shows 0 route leaks / 0 hijacks; minor hygiene items (1 RPKI-invalid IPv6 prefix, 2 DDoS amplifiers) are low-severity for a large R&E network; IPinfo VPN flag expected for an academic network

Network & routing

Network type

provincial research and education network (CANARIE/NREN anchor); serves B.C. universities, colleges, institutes, and research labs [Confirmed] — peeringdb.com/asn/271, bc.net/about, canarie.ca/nren/case-studies/bcnet

Size

~81 IPv4 prefixes (bgp.tools) / 192 (bgp.he.net) / 47 (RIPEstat) and ~38 IPv6 prefixes; estimate ~427,264 IPv4 addresses (~1,669 /24 equivalents) [Likely — counts vary by source/time window] — bgp.tools/as/271, bgp.he.net/AS271, RIPEstat announced-prefixes

Routing/peering

~5 upstreams — AS1299 (Arelion/Telia), AS6327 (Shaw), AS6509 (CANARIE), AS6939 (Hurricane Electric), AS394256 — ~25 peers, customer cone ~18 ASNs; open peering policy; present at VANIX (AS2499) with 2×100G [Confirmed for upstreams/policy; Likely for exact peer/cone counts] — bgp.he.net/AS271, bgp.tools/as/271, RIPEstat asn-neighbours, peeringdb.com/asn/271

RPKI

strong posture — large majority of announced prefixes RPKI-valid with ROAs (~109 ROAs: ~77 IPv4, ~32 IPv6 per bgp.he.net); 1 RPKI-invalid IPv6 prefix noted [Likely] — bgp.he.net/AS271, bgp.tools/as/271

Notable usage

backbone network for B.C. higher education and research; connects member institutions across the province to CANARIE and 100+ global R&E networks; offers network, cybersecurity, procurement, and shared IT services; member-led governance with annual BCNET Connect conference

[Confirmed] — bc.net, bc.net/about, canarie.ca/nren/case-studies/bcnet

Traffic

50–100 Gbps (PeeringDB self-reported) [Likely — self-reported] — peeringdb.com/asn/271

Analyst note

Encountered as one of Canada's oldest ASNs (registered Feb 1989), operated by BCNET, the B.C. provincial R&E network and CANARIE anchor. Clean, active, well-routed. allocated_date is the autnum TOP-LEVEL registration event (1989-02-24); the entity/org registration dates (HOSTM458 2004, BCNET1 2021, org BC-Z 2008) are decoys and were not used.