AS7668 — HTCN Hokuriku Telecommunication Network Co.

AS7668 announces 7 IPv4 prefixes covering 29,696 addresses and 1 IPv6 prefixes.

About this network

HTCN is Hokuriku Telecommunication Network Co., Inc. (HTNet), the telecoms arm of the Hokuriku Electric Power group, headquartered in Kanazawa and serving Ishikawa, Toyama and Fukui prefectures on Japan's Sea of Japan coast.

What it's used for

• Around 29,700 addresses across nine prefixes, plus 2001:308::/32 in IPv6. The company also runs a data centre in Kanazawa.
• Reverse DNS shows subscriber addressing on the company's fibre brands: NNN.191.250.210.hikari.fibernet.jp and NNN.96.213.202.ohmb.hikarinet.jp are sequentially numbered access pools, the classic shape of consumer and small-business broadband.
• Other blocks carry corporate systems, including hosts in rikuden.co.jp — the domain of parent Hokuriku Electric Power — and generic htcn.ne.jp machines.

Notable

• An eyeball network with a business tail. Japan's regional electric utilities all spun up telecom subsidiaries in the 1990s, riding their own power-line fibre; HTNet is Hokuriku's, the same pattern as Enecom in Chugoku (AS7670), QTnet in Kyushu (AS7679) and HOTnet in Hokkaido (AS7682).

Interesting

• The utility-telecom model gave these companies a rights-of-way advantage no greenfield ISP could match: the fibre was already strung on the power poles. It is why several of Japan's regional broadband providers are, underneath, electricity companies.

This description is AI-generated, best-effort context — not authoritative, and provided without any guarantee of accuracy.

Announced prefixes

• 202.213.96.0/19
• 202.242.34.0/24
• 202.245.196.0/23
• 210.166.5.0/24
• 210.167.0.0/19
• 210.250.160.0/19
• 211.120.192.0/20
• 2001:308::/32

Upstream networks

• AS2497 Internet Initiative Japan Inc.
• AS2516 KDDI CORPORATION
• AS6939 Hurricane Electric LLC
• AS2519 ARTERIA Networks Corporation
• AS17676 SoftBank Corp.
• AS24482 SG.GS
• AS20485 Joint Stock Company TransTeleCom
• AS17639 Converge ICT Solutions Inc.
• AS17534 NSK Co.,Ltd.

Downstream networks

• AS4711 INTEC Inc.
• AS17932 Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
• AS18123 INAOKI EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
• AS24260 Board of trusty: Kinjo-Gakuen
• AS24264 Kanazawa Institute of Technology

Adjacent networks

• AS2497 Internet Initiative Japan Inc.
• AS2516 KDDI CORPORATION
• AS4711 INTEC Inc.
• AS6939 Hurricane Electric LLC
• AS2519 ARTERIA Networks Corporation
• AS17932 Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
• AS18123 INAOKI EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
• AS17676 SoftBank Corp.
• AS24482 SG.GS
• AS20485 Joint Stock Company TransTeleCom
• AS17639 Converge ICT Solutions Inc.
• AS24260 Board of trusty: Kinjo-Gakuen
• AS24264 Kanazawa Institute of Technology
• AS17534 NSK Co.,Ltd.

Internet exchanges

• JPIX Tokyo — Tokyo, Japan
• BroadBand Internet eXchange Osaka — Osaka, Japan
• Equinix Internet Exchange Tokyo — Tokyo, Japan
• JPIX Osaka — Osaka, Japan
• Network Service Provider IXP (Distributed IX in Edo) — Tokyo, Japan