When choosing a hosting provider or datacenter, people often look at advertised bandwidth, number of available ports or price per megabit. But behind these figures lies a technical reality that truly determines the quality of your connectivity: the ASN, or Autonomous System Number. AlpineDC operates its own autonomous network under AS198385. What does this mean for you in practice?
What is an autonomous system?
The Internet is not a single network. It is a collection of tens of thousands of independent networks — called autonomous systems — that interconnect and exchange routing information with each other. Each autonomous system is identified by a unique number: its ASN (Autonomous System Number). A telecom operator, an ISP, a large enterprise, a datacenter or a university can own its own ASN. Owning an ASN means directly controlling how traffic enters and leaves your network — without depending on an intermediary to make those decisions.
How BGP routing works
Autonomous systems communicate with each other through a protocol called BGP (Border Gateway Protocol). This is the routing protocol of the Internet — the one that allows a packet sent from Zurich to reach a server in Singapore via the most efficient available path. In practice, BGP works like a worldwide signposting system: each autonomous system advertises the blocks of IP addresses it controls, and the other autonomous systems learn how to reach those addresses.
An operator that owns its own ASN can:
- Advertise its own blocks of IP addresses (its prefixes)
- Choose its preferred routing paths
- Automatically switch to another path in case of failure
- Optimise latency to different destinations
IP transit vs peering: what's the difference?
There are two ways for an autonomous system to connect to the Internet:
IP transit means paying a higher-tier operator (a "tier 1" or "tier 2") to carry your traffic to the rest of the Internet. It is simple and effective, but traffic goes through an intermediary, which can lengthen paths and increase latency.
Peering means interconnecting directly with other autonomous systems, without intermediary and without exchange costs. Traffic between the two networks passes directly, which reduces latency and improves reliability.
Peering typically takes place at Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), neutral infrastructures where many operators connect to exchange traffic directly.
Why AlpineDC has its own ASN
AlpineDC has operated the autonomous network AS198385 since its beginnings. This technical decision has direct consequences on the quality of service offered to our clients.
Multi-transit for resilience
AlpineDC relies on several different IP transit operators. If one of them encounters a problem, traffic automatically switches to the others — with no visible interruption to your services.
Presence on major Swiss and European IXPs
AlpineDC is present at four major exchange points:
- SwissIX — the main Swiss IXP, in Zurich
- RomandIX — the Romandy IXP, in Lausanne
- France-IX — French exchange point
- DE-CIX — one of the largest IXPs in Europe, in Frankfurt
This presence allows traffic to be exchanged directly with hundreds of operators, without going through paid transit, which reduces latency and improves performance for your users.
Total routing control
With its own ASN, AlpineDC makes its own routing decisions. Our clients' traffic is not subject to the routing policies of a third-party host — we directly control how packets enter and leave our network.
Native IPv4 and IPv6 addresses
AlpineDC has its own blocks of IP addresses, advertised directly from AS198385. Your IP addresses are portable — if you migrate to another infrastructure, you can keep your existing IP addresses.
What this means for you in practice
Reduced latency to Switzerland and Europe: Thanks to direct peering on SwissIX and RomandIX, traffic between your servers and the main Swiss networks takes the shortest possible path. For latency-sensitive applications — databases, VoIP, VDI — this is a measurable difference.
Resilience in case of failure: BGP multi-transit guarantees that a failure at one transit operator does not cause a service interruption. Failover is automatic and transparent.
Transparency and traceability: You can view AS198385 routing information directly on public tools such as RIPE NCC or BGP.tools. Our network configuration can be verified by any network engineer.
Independence from large platforms: AlpineDC is not a connectivity reseller for a large operator. Our network is independent, operated directly by our technical team based in Switzerland.
Going further: how to check a host's ASN
Before choosing a host, a few simple checks help evaluate its connectivity quality:
- Search for its ASN on bgp.tools or apps.db.ripe.net — if it does not have one, it depends entirely on a third-party operator.
- Check its peering points on PeeringDB — the number and quality of IXPs indicate the richness of the connectivity.
- Look at the number of advertised prefixes — an operator that advertises its own prefixes controls its IP addresses.
- Verify multi-transit — a single transit operator is a single point of failure.
For AlpineDC: see AS198385 on BGP.tools and AS198385 on PeeringDB.
In summary
An ASN is not a technical detail reserved for network engineers. It is a direct indicator of a host's operational mastery of its connectivity. An operator that owns its own ASN, peers at major IXPs and relies on multiple transits structurally offers better resilience, lower latency and greater independence than a simple connectivity reseller. This is one of the reasons why AlpineDC chose from the outset to operate its own autonomous network AS198385 — and to maintain it directly from Switzerland. If you would like to learn more about our network infrastructure or discuss your connectivity needs, contact us.
AlpineDC has dedicated rooms in Lausanne and Crissier, with an autonomous AS198385 network and multi-operator connectivity. Our infrastructures are exclusively located in Switzerland and operated by a local team.