AS3257

AS3257 is the global backbone autonomous system of GTT Communications, Inc., a Tier-1 international IP transit and managed-networking carrier headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. Registered in the RIPE NCC database (the RIPE block AS3154–3353 is the IANA 16-bit assignment that contains it), the ASN carries the holder name GTT-BACKBONE and reaches the public Internet without paid upstreams, the operational signature of a Tier-1 network. GTT's backbone has a long lineage: the network achieved Tier-1 status in April 2013 after GTT acquired Tinet (formerly Tiscali International Network), and AS3257 absorbed the operator's earlier AS4436 around 2016. Routing data confirms a large, globally visible footprint — on the order of 1,300–1,400 IPv4 prefixes and roughly 78–82 IPv6 prefixes directly originated, an estimated 8.5–8.7 million IPv4 addresses, and a full announced customer cone exceeding 250,000 prefixes. The AS is seen by essentially every RIPE RIS collector (100% IPv4, ~99.7% IPv6) and peers with more than 1,800 networks. RPKI deployment is partial: GTT runs GoRTR/OctoRPKI and rejects RPKI-invalid routes from peers, yet only about 530 of its own originated prefixes carry valid ROAs against 75 invalid, a coverage gap typical of a large legacy portfolio. Security posture is clean at the operator level — no rogue/bulletproof designation — though GTT appears as a transit path (not originator) in several documented route-leak events and in a February 2026 SonicWall reconnaissance campaign that transited commercial proxy nodes. Abuse, NOC, and peering contacts are published, and GTT operates a restrictive settlement-free peering policy.

Operator

GTT Communications, Inc. (holder handle GTT-BACKBONE; HQ Arlington, Virginia, US) [Confirmed] — rdap.db.ripe.net/autnum/3257, peeringdb.com/net/14, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTT_Communications

Country / RIR

US operator; RIR RIPE NCC (ARIN RDAP redirects to RIPE for AS3257); authoritative RIR for abuse = ripe [Confirmed] — rdap.db.ripe.net/autnum/3257, RIPEstat abuse-contact-finder

Allocated

2002-09-20 — RIPE NCC RDAP autnum top-level "registration" event (read via fetch-canonical.mjs --max-bytes 0); last changed 2026-06-25 (routine RIPE maintenance) [Confirmed] — rdap.db.ripe.net/autnum/3257. Note: IPinfo and several third-party ASN registries cite an original allocation of 1994-09-30; that earlier date is not in the RIPE autnum top-level events and is tagged [Likely], with the registry top-level event recorded as the authoritative allocated_date.

Org status

private company; formerly NYSE-listed (symbol GTT), delisted Aug 2021, prepackaged Chapter 11 Sept 2021 after the ~$1.74B infrastructure-division sale to I Squared Capital, emerged from Chapter 11 Dec 30 2022 [Confirmed] — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTT_Communications

Contacts

abuse@gtt.net; noc@gtt.net (historically bounced ~Dec 2019; community-cited alternate inoc@gtt.net); peering@gtt.net [Confirmed for abuse/RDAP contacts; Likely for the inoc@ alternate] — rdap.db.ripe.net/autnum/3257, mailman.nanog.org 2019-December

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no public rogue/bulletproof designation as of 2026-06-25; Scamalytics fraud score 31/100 (medium) for the GTT Communications Inc. entity (sub-entities score 0/100), driven by hosting/VPN/proxy blocks in the portfolio; CleanTalk shows baseline-low spam rates. Notable transit involvement (not originator): Feb 22–25 2026 SonicWall recon campaign via ByteZero proxy IPs in 154.208.64.0/21 (~27,119 sessions through AS3257); route-leak propagation paths Apr 2025 (Voxility), Oct 2025, Mar 2026

Network & routing

Network type

Tier-1 / NSP global carrier — IP transit, WAN, SD-WAN, MPLS, VoIP, cloud security, managed networking [Confirmed] — peeringdb.com/net/14, bgp.he.net/AS3257, gtt.net

Size

~1,355 IPv4 prefixes announced / ~1,380 originated; ~78 IPv6 announced / ~82 originated; ~8.57M IPv4 addresses (routing-status) to ~8.71M (bgp.he.net originated); full announced cone ~250,384 prefixes (223,844 IPv4 + 26,540 IPv6) [Confirmed] — stat.ripe.net routing-status, bgp.he.net/AS3257

Routing/peering

no paid upstreams in normal operation (Tier-1); observed upstreams when present: AS3356 (Lumen/Level 3), AS1299 (Arelion), AS174 (Cogent), AS6762 (Telecom Italia Sparkle). ~1,861 BGP peers total (1,837 IPv4, 955 IPv6); ~1,849 observed neighbours; average AS-path length ~4.04; ~4 IXPs listed

[Confirmed] — bgp.he.net/AS3257, stat.ripe.net routing-status

RPKI

partial — GTT runs GoRTR + OctoRPKI and filters RPKI-invalids from peers; ~530 ROA-valid originated prefixes (500 IPv4, 30 IPv6) vs ~75 invalid (63 IPv4, 12 IPv6); majority of ~1,380 originated IPv4 prefixes lack ROAs [Confirmed] — bgp.he.net/AS3257

Peering policy

restrictive settlement-free — requires regional presence thresholds, 400 Gbps (US/EU) / 100 Gbps (APAC) inter-hub capacity, ≥100 Gbps traffic per direction, ≤3:1 ratio, transit to ≥1,500 downstream ASNs, 24/7 NOC; meeting requirements does not guarantee peering

[Confirmed] — gtt.net/us-en/peering/, peeringdb.com/net/14

Notable usage

global Tier-1 backbone (GTT-BACKBONE); Tier-1 status achieved April 2013 via the $54.5M Tinet (ex-Tiscali International Network) acquisition; operates across 170+ countries, 400+ PoPs, 140k+ customer locations; absorbed earlier ASN AS4436 (~2016)

[Confirmed] — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTT_Communications, bgp.he.net/AS3257, mailman.nanog.org NANOG 2016-January

Related ASNs

AS4436 (GTT's prior ASN, migrated into AS3257 ~2016) [Likely] — mailman.nanog.org NANOG 2016-January

RIS visibility

326/326 IPv4 RIS peers (100%); 322/323 IPv6 (99.7%) [Confirmed] — stat.ripe.net routing-status

IRR / RPKI handles

IRR route set AS-GTT; maintainers AS3257-ROUTE-MNT, RIPE-NCC-END-MNT [Confirmed] — peeringdb.com/net/14, rdap.db.ripe.net/autnum/3257

Analyst note

Large, well-known Tier-1 transit backbone with broad global routing visibility. Abuse signals are consistent with the noise floor of a major carrier rather than operator misconduct; documented incidents are transit-path involvement, not origination. allocated_date is recorded from the RIPE autnum top-level registration event (2002-09-20), with the third-party 1994-09-30 claim noted as Likely.