"Within the Internet, an Autonomous System (AS) is a collection of connected Internet Protocol (IP) routing prefixes under the control of one or more network op

"Within the Internet, an Autonomous System (AS) is a collection of connected Internet Protocol (IP) routing prefixes under the control of one or more network operators that presents a common, clearly defined routing policy to the Internet", from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_System_Number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_System_Number