AS3491

AS3491 is a large, transit-free Tier 1 backbone autonomous system operated by PCCW Global (HK) Limited, the international carrier division of Hong Kong-based HKT Limited (HKEX: 6823), itself majority-owned by PCCW Limited (HKEX: 0008). Although the AS number sits in the 3354–4607 block assigned by ARIN per the IANA 16-bit AS Numbers Registry, the live registry object is held under APNIC, whose RDAP record names the holder PCCWG-APAC-HK at 16/F, Telecom House, 3 Gloucester Road, Hong Kong. The network is heavily routed: it originates roughly 500 prefixes itself while carrying tens of thousands more for downstream customers, and BGP tooling places its customer cone near the top ten globally (~23,868 downstream ASNs). Operationally it underpins PCCW Global's global IP transit, MPLS VPN, SD-WAN/SASE, and the Console Connect Network-as-a-Service interconnection platform, with PoPs across Asia-Pacific, Europe, Africa, and North America. The most historically notable event tied to AS3491 is the February 2008 YouTube/Pakistan Telecom BGP incident, in which PCCW — acting as Pakistan Telecom's upstream — propagated a hijacked YouTube prefix worldwide before withdrawing it about two hours later; the episode is widely cited as a routing-hygiene failure rather than malice. RPKI posture today is mostly healthy, with a small residue of invalid origins typical of large transit carriers.

Operator

PCCW Global (HK) Limited (APNIC handle PCCWG-APAC-HK; registrant org ORG-PGL1-AP) [Confirmed] — https://rdap.apnic.net/autnum/3491, https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/3491

Country / RIR

HK (Hong Kong), APNIC (authoritative RIR per RIPEstat abuse-contact-finder) [Confirmed] — https://rdap.apnic.net/autnum/3491, https://stat.ripe.net/data/abuse-contact-finder/data.json?resource=3491

Allocated

2026-03-25 — autnum TOP-LEVEL events[] registration date from APNIC RDAP; last changed also 2026-03-25 (both top-level events carry the same timestamp, likely a registry migration/refresh; this is the registry's recorded registration event, recorded as the allocated_date per first-party RDAP fact)

[Confirmed] — https://rdap.apnic.net/autnum/3491

ASN block

3354–4607, assigned by ARIN per the IANA 16-bit Autonomous System Numbers Registry [Confirmed] — https://stat.ripe.net/data/as-overview/data.json?resource=3491

Org status

commercial for-profit carrier; international operating division of HKT Limited (HKEX: 6823), majority-owned by PCCW Limited (HKEX: 0008) [Confirmed] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCCW_Global, https://www.pccwglobalinc.com/

Contacts

abuse support@consoleconnect.com (validated 2026-02-26); NOC usnoc@consoleconnect.com / +1-703-621-1638; peering peering@consoleconnect.com; HQ 16/F, Telecom House, 3 Gloucester Road, Hong Kong [Confirmed for abuse/HQ via RDAP; Likely for NOC/peering via PeeringDB] — https://rdap.apnic.net/autnum/3491, https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/3491

Website

https://www.pccwglobal.com/ (currently redirects to https://www.pccwglobalinc.com/) [Confirmed] — https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/3491

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable current abuse signal as of 2026-06-25 — not on Spamhaus DROP/ASN-DROP per public sources, no malware/C2/botnet attribution. Documented history: (a) Feb 24 2008 YouTube/Pakistan Telecom BGP hijack propagated upstream by AS3491 (~2h, withdrawn 21:01 UTC) — a filtering failure, industry-wide at the time; (b) April 2021 NANOG listing among top distributors of RPKI-invalid routes (~355 at that snapshot) — a hygiene concern, not abuse [Confirmed for 2008 incident and 2021 listing; Likely for current clean status] — https://www.ripe.net/about-us/news/youtube-hijacking-a-ripe-ncc-ris-case-study/, https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2021-April/213346.html, https://www.spamhaus.org/blocklists/do-not-route-or-peer/

Network & routing

Network type

Tier 1 / transit-free NSP backbone (settlement-free peering, no paid upstreams); self-described top-10 global IP network [Confirmed for NSP/Tier-1 self-description; Likely for transit-free observation] — https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/3491, https://bgp.tools/as/3491

Size (originated)

~498 IPv4 prefixes and ~35 IPv6 prefixes originated; ~1.36M IPv4 addresses originated (figures differ slightly between bgp.tools and bgp.he.net by measurement timing) [Likely] — https://bgp.tools/as/3491, https://bgp.he.net/AS3491

Customer cone / rank

customer cone ~23,868 downstream ASNs; ranked ~#10 globally by cone, #1 in Hong Kong by cone [Likely] — https://bgp.tools/as/3491, https://asrank.caida.org/asns/3491

Routing/peering

restrictive peering policy (multiple-location and traffic-ratio requirements; never peers via route servers; contracts not required); ~720–732 BGP peers observed; IRR as-set AS-CAIS; enforces first-AS check [Confirmed for policy via PeeringDB; Likely for peer counts] — https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/3491, https://bgp.he.net/AS3491

Upstreams

none (transit-free Tier 1); observed BGP neighbors (e.g. AS174 Cogent, AS1299 Arelion/Telia, AS3356 Lumen, AS2914 NTT, AS3257 GTT, AS6453 TATA, AS6939 HE, AS6461 Zayo) are settlement-free peers, not paid transit [Likely] — https://bgp.he.net/AS3491, https://bgp.tools/as/3491

RPKI

mostly valid — ~506 valid vs ~30 invalid originated prefixes (18 IPv4, 12 IPv6); flagged by bgp.he.net as announcing some bogons; residual hygiene typical of large transit carriers, not an abuse signal [Likely] — https://bgp.he.net/AS3491, https://bgp.tools/as/3491

Notable usage

global IP transit, MPLS VPN, SD-WAN/SASE, and Layer 1/2/3 on-demand interconnection via Console Connect (NaaS); operator cites 738,000+ km fiber, 145 PoPs in 50+ countries, 60+ subsea/terrestrial routes, 10–20 Tbps traffic; 2025 LEO satellite tests with GalaxySpace in Hong Kong [Confirmed for service set; Likely for self-reported scale figures] — https://www.pccwglobalinc.com/services/network/, https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/3491, https://www.pccwglobal.com/2025/04/pccw-global-and-galaxyspace-complete-leo-satellite-tests-in-hong-kong/

Announced

yes — AS3491 is actively announced and routed [Confirmed] — https://stat.ripe.net/data/as-overview/data.json?resource=3491

IXP presence

~15 internet exchanges (AMS-IX, LINX LON1, HKIX, Equinix Singapore/Sydney, GR-IX Athens, IXPN Lagos, others) [Likely] — https://bgp.he.net/AS3491, https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/3491

Analyst note

Allocated_date 2026-03-25 is the autnum TOP-LEVEL registration event, read directly from APNIC RDAP — recorded as a first-party registry fact. The registrant entity ORG-PGL1-AP carries its own, older sub-object dates (registration 2018-02-26, last changed 2023-09-05) which are NOT the ASN allocation date and were not used. PCCW had this number for decades; the 2026-03-25 top-level timestamp most likely reflects a registry record refresh/migration, but it is the registration event the autnum object actually exposes.