About
BGP communities are widely used by network operators to express routing policy, yet their operational use, visibility, and interpretation remain only partially understood.
Communities in the Wild brings together network operators, Internet measurement researchers, and tool developers to discuss operational practice, measurement methodologies, observability, validation, and emerging research directions related to BGP communities.
The workshop will combine invited presentations with moderated discussions and community exchange. Its goal is to strengthen collaboration between the operational routing and Internet measurement communities, identify open measurement challenges, and help shape future research and operational practice.
Community & Outcomes
A central goal of the workshop is to build a “community of communities” around BGP communities, connecting the operational, research, measurement, and tooling communities that create, observe, interpret, and use them.
As a concrete outcome, we anticipate preparing a publicly available workshop report, potentially suitable for submission to ACM CCR. The report would document current practices, known limitations, open challenges, and areas of consensus and disagreement, providing a durable reference point for the community.
News
- First invited speakers confirmed.
- Workshop website launched.
- The workshop was accepted as part of the ACM IMC 2026 Workshop and Hackathon Program.
Program
The program below is tentative and will be updated as speakers and scheduling are confirmed.
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 13:30–13:40 | Welcome Introduction to the workshop and its goals. |
| 13:40–14:50 | Session I: Operational Practice Invited presentations by network operators, IXPs, CDNs, and cloud providers on the operational use of BGP communities, followed by discussion. |
| 14:50–15:15 | Coffee break |
| 15:15–16:25 | Session II: Measurement and Emerging Applications Invited presentations on Internet measurement, community observability and interpretation, validation, geolocation, intent-based networking, and emerging applications of BGP communities, followed by discussion. |
| 16:25–17:00 | Open Discussion Toward a BGP Communities "State of the Union": current practice, open challenges, research opportunities, and community priorities. |
| 17:00– | Biergarten (optional) For anyone still willing to discuss BGP communities after half a day, we'll continue the conversation at a nearby Biergarten. The first beer is on Thomas. 🍺 |
Invited Speakers
The following speakers have confirmed or expressed interest in participating. Additional invitations are in progress, and the final program will be announced once scheduling is finalized.
- Cloudflare — Vasileios Giotsas
- DE-CIX — Speaker to be confirmed
- IIJ — Speaker to be confirmed
- Netflix — Marcel Flores
- PEERING — Italo Cunha
- RIPE NCC / RIPE RIS — Ties de Kock
- Randy Bush
- University of Virginia — Yixin Sun
- UCLouvain / bgproutes.io — Cristel Pelsser
- Columbia University — Ethan Katz-Bassett
Participation
The workshop welcomes anyone interested in BGP communities. Participants are welcome to attend the talks, join the discussions, and contribute their own perspectives.
We also welcome additional short presentations on operational experience, measurement results, tools, datasets, open problems, or other topics related to BGP communities. If you would like to give a short presentation, please contact the organizers so that we can coordinate the program.
Registration
Attendance is handled through the standard ACM IMC 2026 registration process. Participants may register for the workshops only; registration for the main conference is not required to attend the BGP Communities Workshop.
Venue
The workshop will take place on Monday, October 12, 2026, co-located with ACM IMC 2026 in Karlsruhe, Germany. Room and venue details will be announced by the conference organizers.
Organizers
If you have questions about the workshop, please feel free to contact either of the organizers.