AS753

AS753 is a dormant legacy autonomous system number registered under ARIN to Merit Network, Inc. (registry name MERIT-AS-19), a nonprofit research-and-education network. Every routing source checked — bgp.he.net and bgp.tools — agrees it announces zero IPv4 and zero IPv6 prefixes today, with no observed upstreams or peers. ipinfo.io separately flags the ASN's BGP status as Inactive.

The ASN's ARIN RDAP autnum record carries a top-level registration event of 1990-10-08, independently corroborated by bgp.tools, with a last-changed timestamp of 2012-04-02 recorded on the object. Merit Network is a member-governed regional research-and-education network founded in 1966 and governed by Michigan's public universities (Michigan State, University of Michigan, Wayne State), historically notable as the founding organization of NANOG.

Merit's actively-routed operational ASN today is AS237, the only network listed under Merit's PeeringDB organization profile; AS753 has no PeeringDB entry of its own, and no AS753-specific peering policy is published on merit.edu. RPKI cannot be validated for AS753 because it originates no prefixes, so there are no ROAs to check — 0 valid and 0 invalid origins were observed.

Merit Network itself remains an active, continuously operating nonprofit (roughly 60 years as of 2026), so AS753's dormancy describes this specific number resource, not the organization's operational status.

Operator

Merit Network, Inc. (nonprofit R&E network; ARIN handle MERIT-AS-19, Ann Arbor, MI) [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP (https://rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/753), merit.edu/about

Country / RIR

US, ARIN [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP autnum record

Allocated

1990-10-08 (ARIN RDAP top-level autnum registration event; corroborated independently by bgp.tools' "Registration: October 8, 1990"); last changed 2012-04-02 [Confirmed] — https://rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/753, https://bgp.tools/as/753

Org status

active independent nonprofit corporation (Merit Network, Inc.), governed by Michigan's public universities, founded 1966, roughly 60 years of continuous operation as of 2026 [Confirmed] — merit.edu/news/merit-network-celebrates-50-years-of-innovation/

Contacts

abuse@merit.edu (NETWO26-ARIN); admin ipreg@merit.edu (IN-ORG-ARIN); technical operations@merit.edu (MERIT-ARIN) [Confirmed] — ARIN RDAP (https://rdap.arin.net/registry/autnum/753)

Security/abuse context (NEUTRAL, DATED)

no notable public abuse signal found as of 2026-07-28 — not in Spamhaus ASN-DROP, no NANOG-archive or general open-search incident reports found; checked open-source feeds only, not a paid threat-intel service

Network & routing

Network type

nonprofit, member-governed regional research-and-education (R&E) network, independent corporation governed by Michigan's public universities; founded 1966; AS753 is legacy/inactive (Merit's active network runs under AS237) [Confirmed] — merit.edu/network/, merit.edu/about/history/

Size

dormant — 0 IPv4 prefixes / 0 IPv4 addresses and 0 IPv6 prefixes; no upstreams or peers observed; CAIDA AS rank 79,459 (the standard sentinel rank for unrouted ASNs; not seen, not clique member); customer cone is a singleton — 1 ASN, 0 prefixes, 0 addresses

[Confirmed] — bgp.he.net/AS753, bgp.tools/as/753 (2026-07), https://api.asrank.caida.org/v2/restful/asns/753

Routing/peering

NOT announced — 0 observed upstreams and 0 observed peers on bgp.he.net and bgp.tools; ipinfo.io flags the ASN "Inactive" [Confirmed]. AS753 has no PeeringDB entry; only AS237 is listed under Merit's PeeringDB org profile, and no AS753-specific peering policy is published

[Unknown for AS753 policy] — peeringdb.com/org/31248, merit.edu/network/peering/

RPKI

not assessable — AS753 announces no prefixes, so there are no ROAs to validate; bgp.he.net shows 0 RPKI-valid and 0 RPKI-invalid origins [Confirmed] — bgp.he.net/AS753

Notable usage

AS753 (MERIT-AS-19) is a legacy/dormant Merit Network ASN with no current announcements; Merit's actively-routed operating ASN today is AS237. Merit Network founded and historically administered NANOG (1994–~2011)

[Confirmed] — bgp.he.net/AS753, merit.edu/research/projects/north-american-network-operators-group-nanog/

Related ASNs

AS237 (Merit's active, PeeringDB-registered operational network) [Confirmed] — peeringdb.com/org/31248

Analyst note

Legacy Merit Network ASN, registered 1990-10-08 per ARIN RDAP, currently unrouted (0 prefixes, 0 peers per bgp.he.net and bgp.tools). Live Merit routing is under AS237, which is the sole ASN listed in Merit's PeeringDB org profile. No AS753-specific peering policy was found. CAIDA AS Rank places AS753 at 79,459 (CAIDA's sentinel rank for unrouted ASNs) with a singleton customer cone (1 ASN, 0 prefixes, 0 addresses); bgp.tools does not surface either figure for this ASN, but CAIDA's own API does.