AS542

AS542 (ARNET) is a legacy autonomous system number registered under ARIN to the Alberta Research Council (ARC), a provincial research organization headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. ARIN's authoritative RDAP registration event for the autnum records the allocation on 1989-10-11, with a last-changed event of 2000-01-28. ARC itself was folded into Alberta Innovates through a series of consolidations completed by 2016, and the ASN's listed technical/org contact now uses an @AlbertaInnovates.ca email address even though the registrant organization on file remains Alberta Research Council. Both ARIN point-of-contact records are flagged as unvalidated (no confirmed response since 2011 and 2019 respectively), and the organization's original arc.ab.ca domain no longer resolves, while Alberta Innovates' current website makes no reference to the ASN or to network services — suggesting the registration is a largely dormant legacy holdover rather than an actively marketed network. Live routing data shows AS542 originating a single IPv4 block, 128.144.0.0/20 (about 4,096 addresses), with no IPv6 announcements, reached through a lone upstream/peer relationship with Cybera Inc. (AS15296), Alberta's not-for-profit research-and-education network operator and a participant in the national CANARIE R&E backbone. PeeringDB lists ARNET's peering policy as Not Disclosed with no IXP presence recorded. No public abuse signal, blocklist entry, or NANOG/community discussion was found for AS542 across the sources checked.

Operator

Alberta Research Council (ARIN org handle ARC-8); successor org Alberta Innovates (contact email domain @AlbertaInnovates.ca) [Confirmed] — https://rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/542

Country / RIR

CA, ARIN [Confirmed] — https://rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/542

Allocated

1989-10-11 (ARIN RDAP autnum TOP-LEVEL registration event, corroborated independently by bgp.tools' "Registered on 11 Oct 1989"); last changed 2000-01-28 [Confirmed by two angles: A1/A3 primary RDAP + A3's bgp.tools cross-check] — https://rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/542, https://bgp.tools/as/542

Org status

ARIN RDAP status Active; registrant org (Alberta Research Council) administratively absorbed into Alberta Innovates; no live standalone ARC web presence [Confirmed] — https://rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/542

Website

Unknown / not resolvable — arc.ab.ca returns DNS failure as of live check 2026-07-11; albertainnovates.ca (successor org) does not reference AS542 or network services [Confirmed dead domain] — https://albertainnovates.ca/about/

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable public abuse signal, blocklist entry, or NANOG/Reddit discussion found as of 2026-07-11; both ARIN POCs flagged "Unvalidated" (no response since 2011 / 2019), a contact-reachability note, not an abuse finding

Network & routing

Network type

research/education network; classified a "Stub AS" (single-homed, non-transit) by third-party aggregators [Likely] — https://ipinfo.io/AS542, https://bgp.he.net/AS542

Size

1 announced IPv4 prefix, 128.144.0.0/20 (~4,096 addresses); 0 IPv6 prefixes [Confirmed] — https://bgp.he.net/AS542, https://bgp.tools/as/542

Routing/peering

single observed upstream/peer, AS15296 (Cybera Inc); no other peers or IXP memberships found; peering policy "Not Disclosed" per PeeringDB self-submitted entry [Likely for upstream identity; Confirmed for peering-policy string] — https://bgp.he.net/AS542, https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/542

AS rank / customer cone

CAIDA ASRank rank 22278; customer cone singleton (1 ASN, 1 prefix, 4096 addresses) [Confirmed] — https://asrank.caida.org/asns/542

RPKI

Unknown — no ROA status confirmed for 128.144.0.0/20 [Unknown] — https://bgp.tools/as/542

Notable usage

connects via Cybera Inc (AS15296), part of Alberta's not-for-profit R&E network and the national CANARIE backbone [Likely] — https://bgp.he.net/AS542, https://bgp.tools/as-set/CANARIE::as15296:as-gigapop

Analyst note

dormant-looking legacy R&E ASN; registry contact chain traces cleanly from Alberta Research Council to Alberta Innovates, but no ASN-specific operator page exists under either name.