AS279

AS279 is a legacy autonomous system number registered under ARIN to Level 3 Parent, LLC, the registrant entity now operating under the Lumen Technologies brand (the company formed when CenturyLink acquired Level 3 Communications in 2017 and later rebranded). The key triage point for AS279 is that it is effectively dormant today: both routing sources consulted (bgp.he.net and bgp.tools) agree it announces zero IPv4 and zero IPv6 prefixes, has no visible BGP peers, and shows no upstream transit relationships in the global routing table. The active Lumen/Level 3 backbone — one of the world's largest Tier 1 fiber networks — operates under far larger ASNs such as AS3356 and AS3549, not AS279. The ARIN org-id (LPL-141) marks IP space covered by this registrant as explicitly non-portable, and a dedicated RPKI-ROA contact (RPKIR-ARIN, rpki-roa@lumen.com) exists for Lumen's broader ROA management even though AS279 itself originates nothing to validate. No notable public abuse signal was found as of June 2026 — AS279 is absent from Spamhaus ASN-DROP, the CINS active threat feed, and the ipapi.is top-1000 abusive ASN list, and Qrator Radar reports zero hijacks, route leaks, bogons, or amplifiers — consistent with a clean, dormant ASN held by a major Tier 1 carrier.

Operator

Level 3 Parent, LLC (ARIN org handle LPL-141; doing business as Lumen Technologies, formerly Level 3 Communications, Inc. → CenturyLink → Lumen) [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP, bgp.tools/as/279

Country / RIR

US, ARIN [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP, bgp.he.net/AS279

Allocated

2002-06-05 (ARIN registry date from the autnum top-level events[] registration event, a first-party RIR fact; NOT an IEEE date); last changed 2018-02-20 [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum top-level events (A2 + A3 corroborate)

AS name

LVLT-279 [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP

Org status

Level 3 Communications, Inc. acquired by CenturyLink 2017-11-01 and rebranded as Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN); registrant entity Level 3 Parent, LLC continues to hold ARIN resources [Confirmed] — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_3_Communications, lumen.com/en-us/about.html

Contacts

abuse@level3.com / abuse@aup.lumen.com, phone +1-877-453-8353; ipadmin@lumen.com / ipadmin@centurylink.com; HQ 100 CenturyLink Drive, Monroe, LA 71203 (admin/NOC: 1025 Eldorado Blvd., Broomfield, CO 80021); looking glass at lookingglass.centurylink.com [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable public abuse signal found as of 2026-06-21 — absent from Spamhaus ASN-DROP, CINS CI-Army feed, and ipapi.is top-1000 abusive ASNs; Qrator Radar reports 0 hijacks, 0 route leaks, 0 bogons, 0 routing loops, 0 vulnerable ports, 0 DDoS amplifiers; not implicated in the October 2025 Tier 1 route-leak incident

Network & routing

Network type

legacy/inactive ASN held by a Tier 1 global telecom/ISP; the active Lumen/Level 3 backbone runs under AS3356 and AS3549, not AS279 [Confirmed] — bgp.tools/as/279, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_3_Communications

Size

dormant — 0 IPv4 prefixes and 0 IPv6 prefixes announced; address-space estimate not derivable from current routing data [Confirmed for counts; Unknown for estimate] — bgp.he.net/AS279, bgp.tools/as/279

Routing/peering

NOT announced — 0 prefixes (v4 and v6), 0 visible peers, no upstreams observed in the global routing table [Confirmed] — bgp.he.net/AS279, bgp.tools/as/279. Lumen operates a Selective settlement-free peering policy (peering@lumen.com) requiring minimum global exchange volume, RPKI filtering, and broad market interconnection

[Confirmed for Lumen network family] — lumen.com/en-us/about/legal/peering-policy.html

RPKI

RPKI-ROA contact registered at ARIN (handle RPKIR-ARIN, rpki-roa@lumen.com, registered 2024-06-17, last changed 2025-06-17), so ROA infrastructure exists for Lumen; with 0 active announcements no valid/invalid origins are observable for AS279 itself [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP

Notable usage

AS279 (LVLT-279) is a legacy ASN from Level 3 Communications' portfolio, now held by Level 3 Parent, LLC under Lumen. It is currently unused (no active prefixes or routing relationships). Level 3/Lumen historically ran one of the world's largest Tier 1 fiber backbones across North America, Latin America, Europe, and parts of Asia

[Confirmed] — bgp.tools/as/279, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_3_Communications, lumen.com/en-us/about.html

Related ASNs

AS3356 and AS3549 (Lumen/Level 3's active backbone networks) [Confirmed] — bgp.tools/as/279, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_3_Communications

Analyst note

Dormant/legacy ASN. WHOIS resolves to Level 3 Parent, LLC (Lumen), but live routing runs under AS3356/AS3549, not AS279. Both routing sources agree on zero announcements, zero peers, no upstreams. The nested entity/org events (LPL-141 registered 2018-02-06; contact events 2003/2021/2024) are decoys — the authoritative allocated_date is the autnum top-level registration event, 2002-06-05.