Summary

  • AS51570 (SPB-AS) is registered in RIPE to JSC "ER-Telecom Holding" (ORG-RA21-RIPE), with remarks naming the CJSC ER-Telecom Holding Saint-Petersburg branch, and a role object called "Network Operation Center CJSC ER-Telecom Holding Saint-Petersburg branch" (nic-hdl ERTH78-RIPE) registered at Kolomyazhsky 29, Saint-Petersburg.
  • The autonomous system was registered on 30 September 2010, is classified by BGP observatories as an eyeball (access) network, and originates roughly 127 IPv4 and 5 IPv6 prefixes — about 123,392 IPv4 addresses — with a single observed upstream, AS9049 (ERTH-TRANSIT-AS), operated by the same parent holding.
  • Registry data describing the network's routing policy has not been modified since 4 September 2018, so policy details may lag live BGP behavior.
  • Public registry evidence establishes the network's existence and shape, but does not establish whether the named NOC role corresponds to a physically staffed, independently operating coordination unit.

Every network on the internet has a paper trail, and for many operators that paper trail is the only public evidence of what they run. The Saint-Petersburg branch of CJSC ER-Telecom Holding is a clean example. Its RIPE registration — autonomous system number 51570, as-name SPB-AS — is held by the organisation ORG-RA21-RIPE, JSC "ER-Telecom Holding", a local internet registry in Russia, and the aut-num's remarks identify it explicitly as the "CJSC "ER-Telecom Holding" Saint-Petersburg branch" ([https://whois.ipinsight.io/AS51570]). The registry also carries a role object under the name "Network Operation Center CJSC ER-Telecom Holding Saint-Petersburg branch", handle ERTH78-RIPE, with a Saint-Petersburg address on Kolomyazhsky 29 ([https://whois.ipip.net/AS51570]).

It is worth being precise about what that role object is and is not. In RIPE's data model, a role object describes a point of contact — an administrative identity for routing, abuse and maintenance correspondence — not a verified organisational unit with staff, location and responsibilities. The name suggests a branch-level network operations centre; the registry itself cannot confirm that such a unit operates as an independent coordination function. That gap between a registry name and an operating reality is the central finding of this briefing.

The network itself is well documented by third-party observatories. AS51570 was registered on 30 September 2010 and is classified by bgp.tools as an eyeball network — an access network serving end users, consistent with a regional broadband operation rather than a transit or content provider ([https://bgp.tools/as/51570]). Hurricane Electric's view counts 132 originated prefixes in total: 127 IPv4 and 5 IPv6, covering roughly 123,392 IPv4 addresses ([https://bgp.he.net/AS51570] [https://ipgeolocation.io/browse/asn/AS51570]). That is the scale of a city-level access network, not a national backbone.

The topology is equally narrow. Every observatory that reports peers for AS51570 shows exactly one: AS9049, ERTH-TRANSIT-AS, operated by JSC "ER-Telecom Holding" itself ([https://whois.ipinsight.io/AS51570]). The network is single-homed to its own parent. Its RIPE import policy accepts any route from AS9049 and specific routes from AS50952 (DATA-IX), AS48625 (PIR-IX), AS43690 (SPB-IX) and AS57629 (IVI), while exporting its aggregate AS-SPB set to those same neighbours; AS57303 appears as a customer ([https://whois.ipinsight.io/AS51570]). In other words, the branch AS participates in Saint-Petersburg exchange points but depends entirely on the holding's own transit AS for global reach.

One caveat applies to all policy detail: the RIPE aut-num object was last modified on 4 September 2018, so the recorded import/export policy may be stale relative to current BGP announcements ([https://whois.ipinsight.io/AS51570]). The prefix counts, too, are dynamic observatory figures that reflect visibility, not registry truth.

The corporate context explains why the branch exists at all. ER-Telecom was formed in 2001 from the merger of the telephone operator El-Svyaz and the ISP Raid-Internet, and built its consumer business under the Dom.ru brand ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ER-Telecom]). In 2010 — the same year AS51570 was registered — the holding completed the takeover of 14 regional subsidiaries, consolidating them into branch structures, and in March 2015 the legal name changed from CJSC to JSC ER-Telecom Holding; the company is headquartered in Perm ([https://www.akm.ru/eng/news/er-telecom-holding-takes-over-several-companies/]). A 2022 National Credit Ratings report describes AO ER-Telecom Holding as providing broadband, telephony and digital TV under Dom.ru and Dom.ru Business in 567 Russian cities, with Saint-Petersburg among its key regions and top-3 positions in Russian broadband and pay-TV ([https://ratings.ru/upload/iblock/bce/NCR_Ertelecom_CR_150422.pdf]).

The rdap.org lookup endpoint for autnum 51570 could not be retrieved as a document — it is an RDAP client that redirects to the authoritative RIPE server, and no verbatim autnum payload was obtained through it ([https://rdap.org/autnum/51570]). All AS51570 registration facts in this briefing therefore rest on RIPE mirrors and third-party views, which closely reproduce the RPSL objects but are not the authoritative record itself.

Third-party attribution adds one more wrinkle. Aggregators list some prefixes under names like "Perspectiva Ltd." alongside the branch attribution, which differ from the registry's own naming and may be inferred rather than registry-confirmed ([https://bgp.tools/as/51570]). That is a normal artifact of route-object attribution lag, but it reinforces the theme: the public record of this network is assembled from registry mirrors and observatory snapshots, each with its own staleness.

What remains genuinely unverified is the NOC itself. Nothing in the public registry establishes that "Network Operation Center CJSC ER-Telecom Holding Saint-Petersburg branch" is a physically staffed operations unit, how many people it coordinates, or which services it monitors beyond the branch's own access network. The evidence supports a narrower conclusion: AS51570 is the routing footprint of a regional access network administered under a branch designation of the parent holding — and the registry is where that branch is most visible.