Hi Henk, Going off on a slight tangent... :)
When this text was written, the idea was that one would get an ASN32, that is a nummber in the range 0 to 4.10^9.
That doesn't quite match RIPE-389, which says the following: -------------------- 1.9 4-Byte AS Numbers RIPE NCC will assign 4-Byte AS Numbers according to the following timeline: * From 1 January 2007 the RIPE NCC will process applications that specifically request 4-byte only AS Numbers and assign such AS Numbers as requested by the applicant. In the absence of any specific request for a 4-byte only AS Number, a 2-byte only AS Number will be assigned by the RIPE NCC. * From 1 January 2009 the RIPE NCC will process applications that specifically request 2-byte only AS Numbers and assign such AS Numbers as requested by the applicant. In the absence of any specific request for a 2-byte only AS Number, a 4-byte only AS Number will be assigned by the RIPE NCC. * From 1 January 2010 the RIPE NCC will cease to make any distinction between 2-byte only AS Numbers and 4-byte only AS Numbers, and will operate AS Number assignments from an undifferentiated 4- byte AS Number allocation pool. Terminology "2-byte only AS Numbers" refers to AS Numbers in the range 0 - 65535 "4-byte only AS Numbers" refers to AS Numbers in the range 1.0 - 65535.65535 (decimal range 65,536 - 4,294,967,295) "4-byte AS Numbers" refers to AS Numbers in the range 0.0 - 65535.65535 (decimal range 0 - 4,294,967,295) -------------------- It says "4-byte only" (i.e. above 65535) as of the start of next year... Of course, I'm sure this won't prevent the RIPE NCC being a bit more pragmatic in their approach whilst the procedures and documentation is sorted out. :) Cheers, Rob