AS8021 — PCNET

AS8021 announces 1 IPv4 prefixes covering 256 addresses and 0 IPv6 prefixes.

About this network

PCNET — Paradigm Communications, Inc. of Cheshire, Connecticut, an internet service provider that registered this AS number with ARIN in 1996. Its dial-up and access customers, based around Hartford, were acquired by NETPLEX in September 2002, and what survives today is a vestigial routing presence.

What it's used for

• Unclear, honestly. The AS announces a single /24 (208.24.198.0/24) with no reverse DNS on it, behind exactly one upstream: AS6062, NETPLEX — the very company that bought Paradigm's customer base.

Notable

• The /24 is not Paradigm's own address space. It sits inside 208.0.0.0/11, a Cogent Communications direct allocation, so it is provider-assigned space routed on a legacy AS number rather than a legacy address holding.
• With no rDNS, no downstreams and one prefix, there is nothing in the inventory that honestly supports a kind label — access, hosting or otherwise. It is left unclassified rather than guessed at, and addresses in it should not be geolocated or typed from the holder's 1990s ISP identity.
• Name trap: PCNET here is Paradigm's old pcnet.com domain. It is unrelated to PCNet, Inc. of Trumbull, Connecticut, which holds the trademark, and unrelated to PCNet International of British Columbia. Paradigm's own former site says so explicitly.

Interesting

• A 1996 two-byte AS number, still announced, for one borrowed /24. Low AS numbers rarely die; they just get very quiet.

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

Announced prefixes

• 208.24.198.0/24

Upstream networks

• AS6062 NETPLEX

Adjacent networks

• AS6062 NETPLEX