ASK4 operates a large-scale access network for multi-tenant buildings and businesses internationally, as well as  providing managed IT services for businesses, and operating a data centre and hosting from the UK.

We operate a generally-open policy for peering at IXPs and a selective policy for private peering.

Public Peering

 We peer on the route servers at all IXPs at which we are present, and this is our preferred method of public peering. Our current list of exchanges is on our PeeringDB page.

Due to the engineering and operational overhead, we will not generally consider direct sessions unless traffic volumes regularly exceed 250 Mbps. This policy may be bypassed in specific scenarios of important but low-volume traffic. Where a direct session is to be set up, the Peer Requirements section of this document will apply.

Private Peering

We are able to peer privately at 40GE and 100GE at each location we are present (10GE on a case-by-case basis). We would need to see expected traffic regularly reach 10% of the intended port speed before considering this option. We will generally require two or more ports, each capable of carrying the full volume of expected traffic, at diverse locations.

Peer Requirements

Private and direct public peers must:

  • Have and maintain an up-to-date PeeringDB entry
  • Be able to peer both IPv4 and IPv6
  • Operate a 24x7 NOC and inform us of the details
  • Implement BCP 38
  • Publish ROAs for every prefix they announce to us
  • Publish and maintain entries in the appropriate RIR including abuse contacts
  • Not set any default or static route towards ASK4 or direct any traffic towards ASK4 to any address for which a BGP announcement had not been made

We do not require a formal agreement but will sign one, subject to review and negotiation, if required.

We use PeeringDB exclusively to automate our configuration and support systems and will not be able to process any request to override the information stored there.

We reserve the right to decline to peer or to suspend or terminate existing peering sessions at any time and for any reason and without notice.

Traffic Engineering

We announce a consistent superset of prefixes at each location within a territory, however we also announce more-specifics at each location to enable content to be served closer to our end-users. We are able to work on custom traffic engineering setups for content providers with whom we exchange significant traffic volumes.