AS710

AS710 is a dormant legacy autonomous system registered under RIPE NCC (not ARIN — ARIN's RDAP redirects to RIPE for this ASN) as BENT-NET-AS, and every routing source checked agrees it announces zero IPv4 and zero IPv6 prefixes today, with no visible BGP peers, upstreams, or customers.

The registry's own description field ties the record to "Royal Air Base Bentwaters GB" — RAF Bentwaters, a former USAF installation in Suffolk, England, deactivated in 1993. The listed administrative/technical contact is an individual, Paul S. Kim, at The MITRE Corporation in Bedford, Massachusetts, which reads as a caretaker registration rather than a named operating entity. A separate research pass found a Likely but unconfirmed historical link to PSINet via an AS-set (AS-PSINETUS-MC) that predates PSINet's 2002 bankruptcy.

The RIPE RDAP autnum record's top-level events give a registration date of 2002-08-21 and a last-changed date of 2017-11-15; both are recorded here as first-party registry facts. Given the low ASN number and RAF Bentwaters' 1993 closure, the 2002 date more plausibly reflects an ERX (Early Registration Transfer) re-registration into RIPE's database than the network's true original allocation — noted as an interpretive caveat, not a reason to omit the date.

Every topology source consulted (RIPEstat routing-status, CAIDA ASRank/asnDegree) agrees on total dormancy: a CAIDA AS rank of 79,459, a singleton customer cone (the ASN itself, 0 prefixes, 0 addresses), and zero observed neighbours of any kind. RPKI posture cannot be assessed because there are no announced prefixes and therefore no ROAs to validate.

Operator

Unknown — no current operating entity identified; RIPE descr reads "Royal Air Base Bentwaters GB" (former USAF installation, closed 1993); admin/tech contact is an individual (Paul S. Kim) at The MITRE Corporation, acting as caretaker not stated operator

[Unknown] — https://rdap.db.ripe.net/autnum/710, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Bentwaters

Country / RIR

RIR is RIPE NCC, not ARIN (ARIN RDAP redirects to RIPE) [Confirmed]. Country is Unknown/non-specific — CAIDA's own country field reports a placeholder "EU" code with lat/long both 0 (not geolocated); the only geographic signal is the historical RAF Bentwaters (Suffolk, England) association in the RIPE descr field

[Unknown/Likely for UK historical tie] — https://rdap.db.ripe.net/autnum/710, https://api.asrank.caida.org/v2/restful/asns/710

Allocated

2002-08-21 (RIPE RDAP top-level autnum registration event); last changed 2017-11-15 (top-level last changed event) [Confirmed] — likely reflects an ERX transfer/re-registration rather than the network's original allocation, given the low ASN number and RAF Bentwaters' 1993 closure

[caveat, Likely] — https://rdap.db.ripe.net/autnum/710

Org status

RIPE status LEGACY; no PeeringDB entry; no BGP announcements observed; effectively dormant [Confirmed] — https://rdap.db.ripe.net/autnum/710, https://bgp.he.net/AS710

Contacts

admin/tech contact Paul S. Kim, The MITRE Corporation, Mail Stop K224, Burlington Road, Bedford, MA 01730, US (email already redacted in the RIPE record per its personal-data policy; the record's direct telephone number is likewise not republished here); RIPEstat abuse-contact-finder returned no abuse contacts

[Confirmed] — https://rdap.db.ripe.net/autnum/710, https://stat.ripe.net/AS710

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable public abuse signal found as of 2026-07-25 — not in a live Spamhaus ASN-DROP pull, general web/BGP-hijack/NANOG-archive searches; dormant/non-routing status limits abuse visibility

Network & routing

Network type

legacy/inactive; historically tied to a US-military-linked UK installation (RAF Bentwaters, USAF, Suffolk, closed 1993); current network category not applicable given dormancy [Confirmed for historical tie; Unknown for a current category] — https://rdap.db.ripe.net/autnum/710

Size

dormant — 0 IPv4 prefixes / 0 IPv4 addresses and 0 IPv6 prefixes announced; customer cone = 1 ASN (itself), 0 prefixes, 0 addresses [Confirmed] — https://stat.ripe.net/AS710, https://api.asrank.caida.org/v2/restful/asns/710

Routing/peering

NOT announced — 0/328 RIS v4 peers and 0/324 RIS v6 peers see it; CAIDA asnDegree total 0 (customer 0, peer 0, provider 0); no PeeringDB entry found [Confirmed] — https://stat.ripe.net/AS710, https://api.asrank.caida.org/v2/restful/asns/710, https://www.peeringdb.com/api/net?asn=710

RPKI

not assessable — AS710 announces no prefixes, so there are no ROAs to validate [Confirmed] — https://stat.ripe.net/AS710

Notable usage

no active operational usage found; historical RAF Bentwaters (USAF installation) association per RIPE descr, and a Likely but unconfirmed pre-2002 historical link to PSINet via AS-set AS-PSINETUS-MC

[Likely for PSINet link] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Bentwaters, https://bgp.he.net/irr/as-set/AS-PSINET

Related ASNs

Unknown — no confirmed related ASNs; possible historical PSINet family tie is unverified beyond AS-set documentation [Unknown] — https://bgp.he.net/irr/as-set/AS-PSINET

ASN / name

AS710 / BENT-NET-AS [Confirmed] — https://rdap.db.ripe.net/autnum/710

Analyst note

dormant legacy ASN with an unusual historical RAF Bentwaters (USAF) association; the registrant-of-record is a caretaker individual at MITRE Corporation rather than a stated operating company, and no clean current operator name could be confirmed.