US Dedicated (AS63018) supports optional BGP communities that let you control how your prefixes are announced to our upstream transit providers. Tagging a prefix with one of the communities below changes which upstream path is preferred for inbound traffic to that prefix.
These communities are optional. If you do not tag your prefixes with any community, the default behavior applies (see below).
Our Transit Upstreams
The community scheme below controls how your prefixes are announced to each of our transit upstreams. For reference, our current transit upstream providers are:
| Upstream | ASN |
|---|---|
| GSL | AS137409 |
| Unitas | AS13789 |
| Cogent * | AS174 |
| Zayo * | AS6461 |
* Montreal only. At Montreal, Cogent and Zayo are our transit upstreams (GSL and Unitas are not present). We also peer at the QIX (Quebec Internet Exchange) in Montreal for direct exchange with local networks.
What We Send You
When you establish a BGP session with AS63018, you will receive:
- A default route (0.0.0.0/0 for IPv4 and ::/0 for IPv6)
- Our internal routes (AS63018 prefixes)
- Local exchange routes (prefixes from other customers on the same edge router, so you can reach them directly without transiting the public internet)
Default Behavior (no community tagged)
Your prefixes are announced to all of our transit upstreams. Our primary upstream is preferred as the inbound path, and secondary upstreams receive your prefixes with AS path prepending to act as a backup path.
In practice, this means most inbound traffic arrives via our primary upstream, and if that upstream fails or withdraws the route, traffic automatically falls back to the secondary.
Available Communities
Important: Use only one community per prefix. Do not combine traffic engineering communities on the same prefix. If multiple communities are tagged, the first matching policy takes effect and the others are ignored, which can produce unexpected results.
| Community | Description |
|---|---|
| 63018:1374 | GSL primary, Unitas backup. Sends the prefix to GSL clean and to Unitas with AS path prepending. This matches the default behavior and is provided for explicit tagging. |
| 63018:1375 | Both upstreams equally. Sends the prefix to both GSL and Unitas with no prepending. True equal-cost inbound. |
| 63018:1376 | Unitas primary, GSL backup. Sends the prefix to Unitas clean and to GSL with AS path prepending. Reverses the default preference. |
| 63018:1378 | Unitas only. Announces the prefix exclusively via Unitas. The prefix will not be sent to GSL. |
| 63018:61378 | GSL only. Announces the prefix exclusively via GSL. The prefix will not be sent to Unitas. |
Default Route Communities
The default route we send to you is tagged with a community that identifies which of our upstreams it was learned from. If you are doing community-based routing on your end, you can use these to make decisions about your outbound default.
| Community | Description |
|---|---|
| 63018:100 | DEFAULT-GSL. The default route you are receiving was learned via our GSL transit. |
| 63018:200 | DEFAULT-UNITAS. The default route you are receiving was learned via our Unitas transit. |
These communities are informational only — you do not need to match them unless you want to. If you want to prefer one upstream's default over the other, you can set higher local-preference on routes tagged with the corresponding community.
How to Apply a Community
Tag the community on the specific prefix in your BGP export policy toward AS63018. The exact syntax depends on your router platform. Our router will match the community on ingress and apply the corresponding export policy to our upstreams.
If a prefix is not tagged with any of the above communities, the default behavior applies.
Site Availability
Traffic engineering communities are currently available at select sites. Rollout to additional sites is planned. If your service is at a site not listed as supported, please contact support to inquire about availability or planned rollout.
| Site | Supported |
|---|---|
| Atlanta | Coming soon |
| Chicago | Coming soon |
| Dallas | Coming soon |
| Los Angeles | Coming soon |
| Montreal | Coming soon |
| New York | ✓ |
| Seattle | Coming soon |
Questions?
For questions about site availability, supported upstreams, or the community scheme itself, please contact support.
