I believe those are Verizon DNS servers, actually.

yangyang · on Dec 3, 2009

  ~% whois 4.2.2.1

  OrgName:    Level 3 Communications, Inc.
  OrgID:      LVLT
  Address:    1025 Eldorado Blvd.
  City:       Broomfield
  StateProv:  CO
  PostalCode: 80021
  Country:    US
  
  NetRange:   4.0.0.0 - 4.255.255.255
  CIDR:       4.0.0.0/8
  NetName:    LVLT-ORG-4-8
  NetHandle:  NET-4-0-0-0-1
  Parent:
  NetType:    Direct Allocation
  NameServer: NS1.LEVEL3.NET
  NameServer: NS2.LEVEL3.NET
  Comment:
  RegDate:    1992-12-01
  Updated:    2009-06-19

lanstein · on Dec 3, 2009

Huh, I thought those were originally GTE's, and that they eventually became Verizon's with all the mergers and name changes. I stand corrected.

brandon · on Dec 3, 2009

No, you're spot on.

  2.2.2.4.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net.

Even though the IP space hasn't been SWIP'd to GTE/Verizon, the server(s) behind that IP are evidently theirs.