The Autonomous system (Internet) reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Autonomous system (Internet)

In the Internet, an autonomous system (AS) is a collection of IP networks under control of a single entity, typically an Internet service provider or a very large organisation with redundant connections to the rest of the Internet.

A unique AS number is allocated to each AS for use in BGP routing. The numbers are assigned by the same authorities that allocate IP addresses. AS numbers are currently 16-bit integers. There are public numbers, which may be used on the Internet and range from 1 to 64511, and private numbers from 64512 to 65535, which can be used within an organisation.

Types of AS:

• Multihomed AS
• Stub AS
• Transit AS

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