about AS250.net
being the dot in .org
Open Source and community based project often have hard time finding a reliable and budget aware internet service provider. AS250.net is commited to solve this problem. We offer free speech, open source and other community based projects infrastructure and services such as virtual servers, HTTP/FTP content distribution space, DNS services, public internet services such as a IANA AS112 anycast root-server node or public recursive DNS. We also participate in the TOR Project and offer bandwith for anonymous internet access from regions with politically content-filtered access to the internet like China or elsewhere on this planet.
the AS250.net backbone
Heart of the AS250.net Network is our european backbone that spans many key internet cities, locations and regions like Amsterdam, London, Frankfurt, Brussel, Paris, Berlin, Zurich, Dusseldorf and many more. The immediate presence at these locations enables us to host distributed services like Anycast-DNS or HTTP content distribution servers. Thus AS250.net provides the sponsored projects with well connected and reliant managed infrastructure that can serve heavy bandwidth demands and withstand Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDoS). The links between the Points of Presence are sponsored by network service providers and carriers. Due to the broad availability of priorisation techniques such as for example MPLS offers, they can donate unused bandwidth to the community without any cost or impact to their own network.
objectives and principles
Running a project like AS250.net gives opportunities but also implicates responsibility. The question that is behind all decissions at AS250.net (which are usually consensus based) is "is it good for the community?". We believe in responsibility of the individual for the community he or she is part of. During the selection and approval of projects that receive services from us, we evaluate thoroughly if there's a benefit for the internet community and if it's the main objective of the request.
If there are ressources demanded that the AS250.net Project is not able to fulfill we get in touch with a local AS250.net Partner (for example a colocation provider) and discuss a possible sponsorship. AS250.net acts as a mediator between a project and possible sponsors in this case. However most projects (mainly those needing hosting, E-Mail, virtual servers or DNS) receive ressources directly from AS250.net. These ressources are taken from a pool that is either financed by people involved in the operations of the AS250.net Project's network or represent it in a certain region.
In general AS250.net does not take monetary donations. This on the one side has the effect that we have to rely on lesser up-to-date hardware or can't immediately fulfill sponsoring requests but it liberates us from many dependencies and liabilities. We rather want to depend on many individual contributors than to live from the favour of a single party. This gives sponsors the freedom to close the sponsorship at any time and gives us the freedom to decide freely about sponsored projects.
There are a few strict restrictions concerning projects we sponsor. AS250.net does not sponsor projects with partypolitical backgrounds. We also do not sponsor projects with commercial background. All sponsored projects concerning the development of software or the creation of so called immaterial value have to provide these under a license that enables participation by and benefit of the community.
participate!
AS250.net relies solely on the participation of people sharing the believe in our endeavour. On both sides. We need partners willing to provide their time and some of their ressources as well as projects that use them to create value for the community. Get in touch with us today and find out how you can participate!
The AS250.net Project currently also participates! We are member of several Internet Exchanges all over Europe. With our participation there we offer peering members at the respective exchange the possibility to interconnect with our network. Thus they can directly and immediately offer bandwith to their networks or even other places on the internet while they receive a direct route into the AS250.net Network. The peering enables them to reach all the variety of projects that benefit from AS250.net while AS250.net saves cost for bandwith by reaching the networks of the peering partner. This is maybe one of the best examples of possible bilateral benefit that AS250.net has to offer.
We would like to encourage you to get involved with AS250.net - it's not about donating or obtaining. It's about participating in a project that we all and the internet community can benefit from!
