On Mon, 30 Sep 1996, Sanjay Dani wrote: ==>That does not make your one sided arguments stand any more than ==>they did. Goes to prove experience does not necessarily equate ==>insight into all aspects of the business. You have a stake in ==>perpetuating the status quo. Me in changing it because it ==>doesn't make sense. Unfortunately, you can't change it unless you understand how the OPERATIONAL aspects work. Vadim, Avi, Sean, Curtis, et al. have been running networks for _years_ and understand what something means as an impact. These are people who can fine-tune a little bit, and make a world of difference with performance. Obviously a lot of the ideas in the mail flood today were not thought up by people who run networks; just people who want free connectivity everywhere. A few years ago it could be understood that the "network engineer" you were talking to on the phone was TRULY a network "engineer"--he/she understood impact and operational aspects of everything; and also had half a clue when it came to working with equipment. After all, most network engineers didn't have the mentality that "the net" was this utopia, where everyone could do whatever they wanted to, like some think of it today. BGP was designed to give network operators control over how traffic goes out of _AND_ into their networks. Which also means that if I want your traffic to come in over what I have designed as the best route into/through my network, so be it. It also means if I don't want your traffic, so be it. I don't have to take it. ==>> So why you just don't learn why the present system is here, ==>> and why it delivers while others only promise. ==> ==>No, it is beginning to suck. Have you checked reliability ==>of the backbones lately? Sigh.. old hats like you have a Unfortunately, people who think non-operationally tend to have their heads in the clouds. People who think both operationally and developmentally are hard to find, but are the best at realizing better methods that are scalable. "Old hats" might have a problem accepting some change, but they are a bit wiser. Most "old hats" at least know what an RFC is. Or can at least pass up marketing hype and find real-world results as a basis for judging performance within a network (and I'm not just referring to hardware). The problem is that "new hats" tend to re-invent the wheel way too many times. /cah