4 ms·

Could someone explain the technical notability beyond what can be inferred from the Wikipedia page? > An autonomous system (AS) is a collection of connected In

Could someone explain the technical notability beyond what can be inferred from the Wikipedia page? > An autonomous system (AS) is a collection of connected Internet Protocol (IP) routing prefixes under the control of one or more network operators on behalf of a single administrative entity or domain that presents a common, clearly defined routing policy to the internet. > Originally the definition required control by a single entity, typically an Internet service provider (ISP) or a very large organization with independent connections to multiple networks.... The newer definition ...came into use because multiple organizations can run Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) using private AS numbers to an ISP that connects all those organizations to the internet. Even though there may be multiple autonomous systems supported by the ISP, the internet only sees the routing policy of the ISP. That ISP must have an officially registered autonomous system number (ASN). > A unique ASN is allocated to each AS for use in BGP routing. ASNs are important because the ASN uniquely identifies each network on the Internet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_system_(Internet) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_system_(Internet)

walrus01 6y ago
ISP senior neteng here: It means they're starting to get serious about becoming their own facilities-based ISP at the most fundamental "core" level of the Internet. In this case the facilities will be their earth stations for trunk links to the starlink satellites, the satellites themselves, and their routers at major carrier-neutral interconnections points such as where the SIX is physically located. A number of the earth station filing geographic coordinates, in public FCC documents, correlate with the known location of regen huts for north america's largest dark fiber/DWDM/transport carriers on intercity fiber paths. Such as Centurylink and Zayo. The typical thing to do in this case is that they'll be buying 'lit' circuits from carrier-of-carrier ISPs to reach those IX points.
inopinatus 6y ago
It’s the ISP equivalent of setting up stall at a wholesale market. To exchange traffic, providers advertise the IP ranges they can route. The starter pack for this consists of an AS number (which is fundamentally just a nominal integer identifier for your organisation), an interconnect (either to an internet exchange or a transit provider), and some address space to call your own. The notability is commercial: StarLink is ready, or at least preparing, to negotiate peering with other providers. That’s a whole other ball game, c.f http://drpeering.net/white-papers/Art-Of-Peering-The-Peering-Playbook.html http://drpeering.net/white-papers/Art-Of-Peering-The-Peering.... There’s also a social angle. I’ve seen folks wearing their ASN like an agency windcheater. Network engineers are tribal.
- walrus01 6y ago
  Network engineers are tribal but also very cooperative (in the right geographic areas). You can get about 240,000 ipv4 routes out of the entire 840,000 size ipv4 routing table by peering with the SIX route servers. And for any entity that is big enough to be seen as a real serious player, places like where the SIX if physically located are also optimal to establish direct sessions (PNIs) with other large/serious ISPs. All settlement free. Major content sources, CDNs and hosting providers have a strong interest in getting outbound traffic off their networks as efficiently as possible. And downstream eyeball ISPs (starlink) have the same interest in reverse.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago
  > The notability is commercial: StarLink is ready, or at least preparing, to negotiate peering with other providers. That’s a whole other ball game, c.f http://drpeering.net/white-papers/Art-Of-Peering-The-Peering... http://drpeering.net/white-papers/Art-Of-Peering-The-Peering.... Can you delve into the possible business models (not military)_ and commercial applications if this remains? Starlink is seriously this biggest mystery to me about SpaceX's over all trajectory, I find it fascinating but ,my mind doens't conjure up many more thoughts than they'll either be an ISP or work with ISPs to reach a currently unavailable demographic, the nuts and bolts of how are entirely lost on me as I realistically don't understand the Industry.
  - fragmede 6y ago
    (I couldn't load the drpeering.net link.) As far as business models having this enables, it's digital land that belongs to SpaceX/StarLink, which doesn't really restrict what sort of business can be run with it. ISPs will have an AS (sometimes more than one), but non-ISP Internet companies sometimes also have an AS. Google for, example has AS15169 [0] and Google Search and Maps and YouTube and everything is served from there. (Ignore Google Fiber as it predates it.) Wikipedia[1] goes into peering far more elaborately than I, but it would be pure speculation on my part to say anything more elaborate than "StarLink will be an ISP". Elon Musk could give the StarLink receiver hardware away for free and start his own TV channel, having this AS enables that, but doesn't give any indication other than StarLink intends to be on the Internet in a some way. (Not that you'd necessarily need an AS to have a TV channel.) [0] https://bgp.he.net/AS15169#_whois https://bgp.he.net/AS15169#_whois [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_backbone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_backbone
lmm 6y ago
It means that they're a first-class part of the internet in their own right, rather than part of someone else's network. Without an AS number, you're a client of whatever ISPs are providing you with connectivity. If you have your own AS number you are at least nominally a "peer" of other ISPs and responsible for routing a (possibly very small) part of the internet.

walrus01 6y ago

ISP senior neteng here: It means they're starting to get serious about becoming their own facilities-based ISP at the most fundamental "core" level of the Internet. In this case the facilities will be their earth stations for trunk links to the starlink satellites, the satellites themselves, and their routers at major carrier-neutral interconnections points such as where the SIX is physically located. A number of the earth station filing geographic coordinates, in public FCC documents, correlate with the known location of regen huts for north america's largest dark fiber/DWDM/transport carriers on intercity fiber paths. Such as Centurylink and Zayo. The typical thing to do in this case is that they'll be buying 'lit' circuits from carrier-of-carrier ISPs to reach those IX points.

inopinatus 6y ago

It’s the ISP equivalent of setting up stall at a wholesale market. To exchange traffic, providers advertise the IP ranges they can route. The starter pack for this consists of an AS number (which is fundamentally just a nominal integer identifier for your organisation), an interconnect (either to an internet exchange or a transit provider), and some address space to call your own. The notability is commercial: StarLink is ready, or at least preparing, to negotiate peering with other providers. That’s a whole other ball game, c.f http://drpeering.net/white-papers/Art-Of-Peering-The-Peering-Playbook.html http://drpeering.net/white-papers/Art-Of-Peering-The-Peering.... There’s also a social angle. I’ve seen folks wearing their ASN like an agency windcheater. Network engineers are tribal.

walrus01 6y ago
Network engineers are tribal but also very cooperative (in the right geographic areas). You can get about 240,000 ipv4 routes out of the entire 840,000 size ipv4 routing table by peering with the SIX route servers. And for any entity that is big enough to be seen as a real serious player, places like where the SIX if physically located are also optimal to establish direct sessions (PNIs) with other large/serious ISPs. All settlement free. Major content sources, CDNs and hosting providers have a strong interest in getting outbound traffic off their networks as efficiently as possible. And downstream eyeball ISPs (starlink) have the same interest in reverse.
Melting_Harps 6y ago
> The notability is commercial: StarLink is ready, or at least preparing, to negotiate peering with other providers. That’s a whole other ball game, c.f http://drpeering.net/white-papers/Art-Of-Peering-The-Peering... http://drpeering.net/white-papers/Art-Of-Peering-The-Peering.... Can you delve into the possible business models (not military)_ and commercial applications if this remains? Starlink is seriously this biggest mystery to me about SpaceX's over all trajectory, I find it fascinating but ,my mind doens't conjure up many more thoughts than they'll either be an ISP or work with ISPs to reach a currently unavailable demographic, the nuts and bolts of how are entirely lost on me as I realistically don't understand the Industry.
- fragmede 6y ago
  (I couldn't load the drpeering.net link.) As far as business models having this enables, it's digital land that belongs to SpaceX/StarLink, which doesn't really restrict what sort of business can be run with it. ISPs will have an AS (sometimes more than one), but non-ISP Internet companies sometimes also have an AS. Google for, example has AS15169 [0] and Google Search and Maps and YouTube and everything is served from there. (Ignore Google Fiber as it predates it.) Wikipedia[1] goes into peering far more elaborately than I, but it would be pure speculation on my part to say anything more elaborate than "StarLink will be an ISP". Elon Musk could give the StarLink receiver hardware away for free and start his own TV channel, having this AS enables that, but doesn't give any indication other than StarLink intends to be on the Internet in a some way. (Not that you'd necessarily need an AS to have a TV channel.) [0] https://bgp.he.net/AS15169#_whois https://bgp.he.net/AS15169#_whois [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_backbone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_backbone

lmm 6y ago

It means that they're a first-class part of the internet in their own right, rather than part of someone else's network. Without an AS number, you're a client of whatever ISPs are providing you with connectivity. If you have your own AS number you are at least nominally a "peer" of other ISPs and responsible for routing a (possibly very small) part of the internet.