BGP Request Information

In order to establish a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) session with us, customers must meet the following requirements:

  1. The customer must have a T1 or higher bandwidth circuit.
  2. The customer must be multi-homed (with us or any other service provider).
  3. If multi-homing to more than one provider, the customer must obtain an Autonomous System (AS) number, available at http://www.arin.net. If multi-homing only to us, we will provide a private AS number.
  4. The customer’s router must be capable of running BGP4.
  5. Customers must specify what routes they want to receive from us. There are four choices:
    1. Full Internet routes
    2. Allstream and customer routes
    3. Allstream and customer routes, plus default route
    4. Default route only
  6. If the customer wishes to receive full BGP routes from us, the customer’s router must be configured with enough memory to contain these additional routes and associated overhead. We recommend a minimum of 256M of memory for full route tables, but other values may be suitable for the customer’s application.
  7. We will provide only basic assistance with setting up and maintaining the peering session. All internal connections and peering with other parties are strictly the customer’s responsibility.
  8. If the customer wishes to enable BGP with a new circuit, the request should be submitted prior to the installation date to avoid unnecessary delay. The customer must give their account coordinator 5 business days notice of intent to purchase the BGP service.
  9. At this time, the customer should be prepared to submit to us the following information:
    1. The customer’s ASN  (4-Byte ASN supported)
    2. In the case where BGP is being configured over an existing connection, the IP address of the customer’s router
    3. Any downstream ASN’s the customer wishes to route
    4. Any netblocks the customer wishes to route
  10. Customers must include outbound route filtering as part of their configuration, to help prevent improper route announcements.
  11. Should the customer want to request changes to our inbound BGP route filters, please email bgp@allstream.com including details such as the prefixes, downstream ASNs, connected IP address &/or Allstream circuit ID
We reserve the right to shut down BGP service should the following occur:
  • Excessive route flapping
  • Improper network advertisements
Requesting a PRIVATE ASN:
  • In order to request a private ASN, you must be multi-homed, with us as your only provider.
Supported BGP Customer Community Info:

Communities
We allow customers to manipulate their network announcements by sending BGP communities. Customers can send communities to adjust Allstream local preference, and modify export behavior. Customers can use various combinations of these communities to control their inbound traffic flows.

We strip any unrecognized BGP communities received from the customer. WE do not propagate any BGP communities to non-customers, originated by us or otherwise.

Local Preference Manipulation
Our Backbone Local Preference Policy uses the following values:

65, 75, 80, 85 Our Peers
100 Our BGP Customers (default)
100 Our Internal and static routed customers

Customers may send the following communities to modify BGP local preference given to networks announced to Allstream:

Community Our Local Preference Effect on Our Route Preference
7385:60 60 Last Resort — Only use this route when alternate providers no longer have this route.
7385:70 70 Backup #2 — Allows the customer to specify that the circuit on which this route is learned is to be a backup to another circuit with us (since default is set to 100). Also causes the same route to be preferred if learned from and our Bilateral peer over the route marked with this community.
7385:90 90 Backup #1 — Allows the customer to specify that the circuit on which this route is learned is to be a backup to another circuit with us.
7385:110 110 Preferred — This route is preferred over all others.

Export Manipulation:

Customers may send the following communities to modify our default export behavior, which is to export all accepted routes (assuming they have passed our filters) to all BGP peers including customers:

Community Export Behavior
7385:640 Do not export to any BGP peers or customers (similar to well known community ‘no-export’)
7385:666 Do not export to any BGP peers, but do export to our BGP customers

If you agree with the terms above, complete the BGP Request Form to establish a BGP session with us.

BGP Request Form »

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