Anycast Domain Name Service

Packet Clearing House operates the world’s first and largest DNS content delivery network, providing the Internet-using public with the quickest, most resilient DNS user-experience from our 319 locations on six continents. With more than 35 years of production anycast DNS experience, two of the root name server operators and more than 184 top-level domain registries using our infrastructure, and more than 120 million resource records in service, our DNS network is not only the largest and longest-established, but also the most widely trusted domain name service in the world. Because we focus on the core infrastructure of the Internet, we typically service only root and top-level domains, plus select critical-infrastructure domains, including the in-addr.arpa and ip6.arpa domains, the domains of Internet Exchange Points, CERTs, and national governments.

Among our 319 locations, we own and operate large installations of DNS servers at dozens of major Internet exchange points including those in Washington, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, London, Palo Alto, Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, São Paulo, and Johannesburg. At the same time, we also operate smaller server clusters in many smaller countries in poorly-connected regions, where our services, unlike those of other DNS operators, remain available to local users during international connectivity disruptions.

Leapfrog black-hat recursive resolvers, with PCH’s Adaptive DNS.

PCH is the only DNS service provider to offer Adaptive DNS, allowing users’ stub resolvers to bypass recursive resolvers entirely, and receive their DNS answers directly from our authoritative servers over a private and secure TLS-encrypted and authenticated connection. This protects transactions which could otherwise be subverted by a recursive resolver, and is particularly valuable when clients cannot perform their own DNSSEC validation locally. In production since 2020, PCH’s Adaptive DNS service protects critical financial transaction clearing, authentication, and identity management services, and is appropriate for use in any transactions which require absolute protection between an organization and their customers or constituents.

In fulfillment of our not-for-profit mission, we provide this service on a pay-what-you-like basis to not-for-profit registries, at no cost whatsoever to developing-country ccTLD registries, and at competitive rates to commercial domain registries, which include many of the world’s largest Registry Service Providers.

Complementing our anycast DNS service, we also operate the world’s largest DNSSEC public signing service, and the only one which meets or exceeds the security of the DNS root itself. Using us for both anycast and DNSSEC gives domain operators a single point of contact, a single operator responsible for end-to-end DNS service delivery, and the assurance of complete interoperability between these services.

If you’re interested in PCH-hosted secondary or dedicated DNS servers for your top-level domain or customers, please contact our DNS services group.