AS684

AS684 (MTSAL-ASN) is a dormant legacy autonomous system registered to Bell Canada under ARIN. RDAP reports its status as active, but the ASN currently announces zero IPv4 and zero IPv6 prefixes and has not been visible in the global BGP routing table since roughly May 2021, per RIPEstat routing-status and CAIDA ASRank.

The registration itself dates back much further: ARIN's autnum record shows a top-level registration event of 1990-06-14, well before Bell Canada's current ownership. The MTSAL-ASN handle name and older community references (a 2005 RIPE CIDR report) tie the ASN to MTS Allstream / Manitoba Telecom Services, historically carrying Government of Manitoba IP space (198.163.x.x). CAIDA's routing history shows a first-seen block of 142.200.0.0/16 in August 2000 and a last-seen announcement of 198.163.10.0/23 on 2021-05-03.

CAIDA ASRank places AS684 at #79,459 with seen=false, and its customer cone is a singleton — itself, 0 prefixes, 0 addresses — with zero observed upstreams, peers, or customers. No PeeringDB record exists for AS684 itself (peeringdb.com/asn/684 returns 404); Bell Canada's active backbone ASNs (AS577, AS6539) carry the corporation's current peering activity, and that data is not attributable to AS684.

Administrative, routing, technical, and abuse contacts on the RDAP record resolve to Bell Canada groups in Ottawa and Toronto, Ontario, reachable at abuse@bell.ca, abuse@bellnexxia.net, and abuse@sympatico.ca. RPKI posture cannot be assessed because no prefixes are currently announced to validate against ROAs.

Operator

Bell Canada (current ARIN registrant org); ASN handle MTSAL-ASN, historically tied to MTS Allstream / Manitoba Telecom Services [Confirmed] — https://rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/684

Country / RIR

CA, ARIN [Confirmed] — https://rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/684

Allocated

1990-06-14 (ARIN RDAP autnum TOP-LEVEL registration event); last changed 2020-04-21 [Confirmed — corroborated across three independent angles] — https://rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/684

Org status

active registration status per ARIN; operationally dormant since ~2021 (no announced prefixes, no current PeeringDB presence) [Confirmed] — https://rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/684, https://bgp.he.net/AS684

Contacts

abuse@bell.ca, abuse@bellnexxia.net, abuse@sympatico.ca; administrative/routing/technical contacts in Ottawa and Toronto, ON [Confirmed] — https://rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/684, https://stat.ripe.net/data/abuse-contact-finder/data.json?resource=684

IANA reference

none found; left blank rather than invented [Unknown]

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

not listed on Spamhaus ASN-DROP as of 2026-07-18 (verified live feed download); historical routing-loop flag from Qrator radar; no hijack/leak evidence found [Confirmed for ASN-DROP absence; Likely for routing-loop history] — https://www.spamhaus.org/drop/asndrop.txt, https://radar.qrator.net/as/684/security-issues/routing-loops

Network & routing

Network type

legacy/dormant regional network; historically MTS-AS / MBNET-AS "Manitoba Regional Network" [Likely] — https://bgp.he.net/AS684, https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/eof-list/2005-May/000135.html

Size

dormant — 0 IPv4/IPv6 prefixes and 0 addresses currently announced; historically originated 142.200.0.0/16 (first seen 2000-08-18) and 198.163.10.0/23 (last seen 2021-05-03)

[Confirmed] — https://stat.ripe.net/data/routing-status/data.json?resource=684, https://api.asrank.caida.org/v2/restful/asns/684

Routing/peering

not announced — 0 of ~325 RIS peers see this origin; CAIDA degree (customer/peer/provider) all 0; no PeeringDB record for AS684 itself (404) [Confirmed]. Bell's AS577/AS6539 peering data is corporate-level context, NOT attributable to AS684 [Confirmed absence]

RPKI

not assessable — no prefixes currently announced, so no ROAs to validate [Confirmed]

Notable usage

historically carried Government of Manitoba IP space (198.163.x.x); named MTS-AS/MBNET-AS in 2005-era RIPE CIDR reports [Likely] — https://bgp.he.net/AS684

CAIDA rank

#79,459, seen=false, cliqueMember=false; customer cone = 1 ASN (itself), 0 prefixes, 0 addresses [Confirmed] — https://api.asrank.caida.org/v2/restful/asns/684

Analyst note

Encountered as a dormant legacy ASN whose 1990 ARIN allocation predates its current Bell Canada registrant record; live routing has been absent since ~May 2021 and no AS684-specific peering or abuse signal exists. One low-confidence WebSearch claim (alternate name "MBNET-AS" with five named upstream ASNs) conflicted with primary RDAP/CAIDA data and was excluded rather than recorded.