Low AS - Number

Mon Apr 21 19:15:35 UTC 2003

They typically buy them for the customer base - physical assets are
cheap, these days, and can be obtained without the rest of the dross.
Experienced people are similarly available, without having to buy an
entire company.

Silly as it is, low AS number has a geek chic sort of appeal to it. It may
even have wider marketing opportunity - just because Genuity didnt
properly leverage being AS1, doesn't mean that Level(3) won't. Of course,
AS3 would have been better...

There is also the theory that low AS number gives you some peering
gravitas. Some reasonable sized networks that have peered with 5 digit
AS's have raised eyebrows, but its impossible to know if it cost them any
peering.

- Daniel Golding

On Mon, 21 Apr 2003, Mike (meuon) Harrison wrote:

>
> > Nonsense. One of the first things new/large companies do is buy someone
> > with a low ASN and take it over. Look at QWest, Verio, etc. In fact,
> > pretty much the only exception to this rule is Cogent, who is still using
> > 16631 instead of 174 or 4006.
>
> Aww. come on.. do they buy them because of a low ASN?
> Or because they are looking for a core of experienced
> people and some physical assets and customers worth acquiring
> and many of them just happen to have a low ASN.
>
>