Ed, The problem being, you would need state information from the entire Internet (or at least to the networks that you are trying to reach), forcing everyone in the path to any of those networks to run the same protocol and maintain state information. Currently, the technology to perform such a function is available only in pre-production equipment. Most of the core routers of the internet are already struggling with just maintaining the packet flow. The addition of a new global state protocol would bury the things. Chris ---------- Ed's comments appended I'm basically a stub network. I take routes from 3 AS's right now, but I don't redistribute anything I learn. The only redistribution that goes on for me is in my iBGP peering. The convincing argument for me against doing the "intelligent" route selection has been related to the huge route flapping that would ensue. My question is, if I'm not redistributing the routes (except internally, and I have a certain tolerance for route flapping internally) then why not do the intelligent route selection? (the route selection would of course have dampening parameters etc.. and be turned off by default, but have the ability to be enabled, etc) Ed Henigin ed@texas.net