AS703

AS703 is an active Tier-1 autonomous system operated by Verizon Business (legacy UUNET/MCI, ARIN registrant "Verizon Business") as the Asia-Pacific leg of Verizon's three-region global IP backbone (AS701 = US, AS702 = Europe, AS703 = APAC). It currently originates 45 IPv4 prefixes (~705,792 addresses) and 6 IPv6 prefixes, fully visible in RIPE RIS (324/324 peers).

The ASN traces to ARIN's original AS701–AS705 UUNET block, registered 1990-08-03; AS703 has no discrete ARIN autnum record of its own and inherits that block's top-level registration date, with a last-changed date of 2022-05-31. CAIDA ranks it #460 globally, a Tier-1 DFZ clique member, with a customer cone of 100 ASNs.

Verizon Business publishes a selective settlement-free peering policy for its ASPAC network: applicants need at least OC-12 trunk capacity, roughly 30 Mbps of traffic, connectivity to 10 or more other networks, a balanced traffic ratio, and a signed contract (contact peering@verizonbusiness.com).

Between December 2015 and 2017, carriers including Telia, Tata, GTT, and Vodafone inadvertently routed Verizon APAC traffic (AS701/AS703) through China Telecom (AS4134), a misdirection episode documented by Oracle researcher Doug Madory and academic sources; Telia and GTT later added filters in response.

Exposure

Live Tier-1 transit ASN spanning Asia-Pacific with 45 IPv4 / 6 IPv6 prefixes and roughly 132 total BGP relationships (CAIDA degree), so a misconfiguration or hijack carries a wide blast radius.

Threat-feed status

Not listed on the live Spamhaus ASN-DROP list as of 2026-07-24, and no AS703-specific hits found across abuse.ch feeds (ThreatFox, Feodo Tracker, URLhaus, SSL Blacklist) via targeted search.

Routing hygiene

bgp.he.net flags AS703 as announcing bogons, with 0 RPKI-valid origins on both IPv4 and IPv6 and at least one prefix marked IRR origin-mismatch — a hygiene gap, distinct from active abuse.

Historical incident

Traffic misdirection through China Telecom (AS4134) affected AS701/AS703 Asia-Pacific routes from December 2015 into 2017, before Telia and GTT deployed filters (techblog.comsoc.org, securityweek.com).

Unresolved gaps

Named upstream/peer ASNs and per-prefix RPKI validation are Unknown from the sources checked; CAIDA counts 7 provider relationships without naming them.

Operator

Verizon Business (MCI Communications Services, Inc.; legacy UUNET/MCI), ARIN org handle MCICS [Confirmed] — rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/703, peeringdb.com/asn/703

Country / RIR

US (registrant HQ Ashburn/Reston, VA), ARIN [Confirmed] — rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/703

Allocated

1990-08-03 (ARIN RDAP top-level "registration" event for the AS701–AS705 UUNET block; AS703 has no discrete ARIN record and inherits this block date); last changed 2022-05-31 [Confirmed] — rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/703, corroborated bgp.tools/as/703

Org status

active [Confirmed] — rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/703, peeringdb.com/asn/703

Contacts

abuse@verizon.com / abuse-mail@verizonbusiness.com, +1-800-900-0241; peering@verizonbusiness.com [Confirmed] — rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/703

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable public abuse/threat-feed signal as of 2026-07-24 (Spamhaus ASN-DROP checked directly, abuse.ch/NANOG/BGP-incident trackers searched); routing-hygiene flags (bogon announcement, unvalidated RPKI, IRR mismatch) are separate from abuse findings [Confirmed for Spamhaus; Likely for search-based negatives] — spamhaus.org/drop/asndrop.txt, bgp.he.net/AS703

Network & routing

Network type

global Tier-1 IP backbone / NSP; AS703 is the Asia-Pacific region of Verizon Business's three-region (US/Europe/APAC) architecture [Confirmed] — verizon.com/business/terms/peering, peeringdb.com/asn/703

Size

45 IPv4 prefixes / ~705,792 addresses; 6 IPv6 prefixes (RIPEstat); RIS visibility 324/324 v4 peers, 320/321 v6 peers; bgp.he.net shows a broader 486/54 "announced" count including more-specifics [Confirmed] — stat.ripe.net/AS703, bgp.he.net/AS703, bgp.tools/as/703

Routing/peering

CAIDA AS rank #460, Tier-1 clique member, total degree 132 (84 customers, 41 peers, 7 providers); customer cone 100 ASNs / 3,201 prefixes / 4,184,893 addresses; named upstreams/peers Unknown [Confirmed for counts; Unknown for named ASNs] — asrank.caida.org/asns/703

Peering policy

selective/conditional settlement-free; ASPAC requirements include min OC-12 trunk capacity, ~30 Mbps traffic, connectivity to ≥10 networks, balanced traffic ratio (≤1.8:1), signed contract [Confirmed] — verizon.com/business/terms/peering

RPKI

not assessed at ASN level in this pass; bgp.he.net shows 0 RPKI-valid origins on both IPv4 and IPv6 [Unknown/Likely] — bgp.tools/as/703, bgp.he.net/AS703

Notable usage

one of the internet's oldest ASN blocks (1990), originating from UUNET/MCI, now anchoring the Asia-Pacific leg of Verizon's global backbone spanning 150+ countries [Confirmed for history; Likely for current scale via third-party BGP data] — verizon.com/business, bgp.tools/as/703, bgp.he.net/AS703

Related ASNs

AS701 (US), AS702 (Europe), AS704, AS705 — same UUNET block [Confirmed for block membership; Likely for regional split] — rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/703, verizon.com/business/terms/peering

Analyst note

ARIN's RDAP object for AS703 is actually a block record (handle AS701, startAutnum 701, endAutnum 705, name UUNET); the 1990-08-03 registration date is recorded from that top-level autnum event, not from any entity-level contact/org date, per instruction that RIR registry dates are first-party facts.