AS6762

AS6762 is the autonomous system behind Seabone, the global IP backbone operated by Telecom Italia Sparkle S.p.A. of Rome, Italy — the international-carrier subsidiary of the TIM group. Registered through RIPE NCC under the network handle SEABONE-NET, it is a transit-free Tier 1 network: PeeringDB classifies it as an NSP, and the operator markets a DWDM fiber backbone spanning hundreds of thousands of route-kilometres across Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the Mediterranean. The network is firmly active. RIPEstat routing-status shows it originating 271 IPv4 prefixes (roughly 269,824 addresses) and 13 IPv6 prefixes at full RIS visibility (326/326 v4, 323/323 v6 peers), with 692 observed BGP neighbours covering its combined upstream-free peering and customer cone — first seen in routing on 2000-08-18 via 194.204.96.0/19. Seabone runs a restrictive peering policy (contracts and traffic-ratio requirements; peering@seabone.net) and exposes a rich customer-controllable BGP community scheme, including 6762:666 for /32 blackholing and selective-prepend and IXP-filter communities. Security-wise there is no notable public abuse signal attributable to AS6762 as an originator as of June 2026: the documented incidents are transit-propagation events and routing-hygiene gaps typical of a large Tier 1, and Sparkle began rejecting RPKI-invalid prefixes on 2026-02-03 (isbgpsafeyet.com). The CAIDA AS rank and customer-cone figures could not be retrieved this pass (CAIDA timed out) and are recorded as Unknown.

Operator

Telecom Italia Sparkle S.p.A. (brand "Seabone"; network handle SEABONE-NET); wholly-owned subsidiary of the TIM group [Confirmed] — RIPE RDAP autnum/6762, tisparkle.com/about-us/company; corroborated by A2 + A5

Country / RIR

IT (Rome), RIPE NCC [Confirmed] — RIPE RDAP autnum/6762 (registrant ORG-TIIO1-RIPE, Via Macchia Palocco 223, 00125 Rome, Italy)

Allocated

2002-09-20 (RIPE RDAP autnum top-level registration event 2002-09-20T09:35:22Z — first-party RIR registry fact, NOT an IEEE date); last changed 2025-03-19 [Confirmed] — RIPE RDAP autnum/6762; A2 and A3 agree

Org status

active; wholly-owned subsidiary of the TIM group, subject to Italian "Golden Power" oversight; EU approved a ~€700M sale to an MEF + Retelit consortium on 2026-04-13 [Confirmed for status; Confirmed for sale per trade press] — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecom_Italia_Sparkle, submarinenetworks.com

Contacts

tech@seabone.net (Seabone 2nd Level Support, handle SEA6-RIPE); peering@seabone.net; sales seabone@tisparkle.com; HQ Via Macchia Palocco 223, 00125 Rome, Italy [Confirmed] — RIPE RDAP autnum/6762, peeringdb.com/net/31

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable public abuse attributable to AS6762 as originator as of 2026-06-25. Documented incidents: (1) July 2018, Sparkle was unwitting transit for AS205869/AS57166 IPv4 hijacks and pulled routes within hours after private notification; (2) April 2025, then-incomplete ROV let it propagate an invalid /24 sub-prefix hijack (since remediated); (3) January 2026, a downstream (AS8048 CANTV) leaked routes learned from AS6762 — Sparkle was the victim-upstream, not the leaker

Network & routing

Network type

Tier 1 / transit-free international IP backbone (NSP per PeeringDB); DWDM fiber spanning Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the Mediterranean [Confirmed] — peeringdb.com/net/31, tisparkle.com IP platform page; A2 + A5 agree

Size

active — 271 IPv4 prefixes (~269,824 addresses) and 13 IPv6 prefixes originated; 692 observed BGP neighbours; full RIS visibility (326/326 v4, 323/323 v6) [Confirmed] — RIPEstat routing-status; first seen routing 2000-08-18 (194.204.96.0/19)

Routing/peering

restrictive peering policy — formal agreement + traffic-ratio requirements; peering@seabone.net; published policy PDF on tisparkle.com [Confirmed] — peeringdb.com/net/31, tisparkle.com Seabone Peering Policy PDF. Upstream/peer/customer breakdown not split out by the routing-status endpoint; CAIDA degree data Unknown this pass

RPKI / routing hygiene

as of 2026-02-03 Sparkle rejects RPKI-invalid prefixes ("signed + filtering" on isbgpsafeyet.com); prior to that it lacked ROV. bgp.he.net flags some bogon announcements and IRR origin-mismatch prefixes in legacy US ranges (67.x, 208.x) — hygiene gaps typical of a large transit AS, not malicious origination [Confirmed for current ROV; Likely for hygiene-flag detail] — isbgpsafeyet.com, bgp.he.net/AS6762

AS rank / customer cone

Unknown — CAIDA AS Rank timed out this pass; no rank or cone size available [Unknown] — no citation (abstained source)

Notable usage

one of the world's larger Tier 1 backbones; IP transit to ISPs, content providers, and CDNs globally; strong Southern Europe / North Africa / Mediterranean position (Sicily Hub, SEA-ME-WE cables); ranked among the top international carriers (7th worldwide, 2nd in Europe, per 2017 figures) [Confirmed for role; Likely for ranking, single-dated source] — tisparkle.com, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecom_Italia_Sparkle, peeringdb.com/net/31

IXP presence

present at 13+ public exchanges including AMS-IX, DE-CIX Frankfurt, LINX LON1, and several Equinix fabrics (Ashburn, Palo Alto, Singapore) [Confirmed] — peeringdb.com/net/31

BGP communities

customer-controllable scheme — 6762:666 (/32 blackhole), 6762:20pXX (selective prepend to specific ASes), 6762:200XX (per-IXP filtering), 6762:1xxx (local-pref); inbound region/city/source tags [Confirmed] — tisparkle.com BGP-Community-support-for-AS6762-Customers

Analyst note

Encountered as a large, active Tier 1 international backbone (Seabone) under Telecom Italia Sparkle. Allocated_date is the RIPE first-party registration event (2002-09-20); routing has been visible since 2000. CAIDA rank/cone left Unknown rather than fabricated.