add a peer P to your first example. if P peers with you at Point1 close to A's connection and again at a Point2 close to B's connection, then P will hear M's prefixes at Point1 as "R A M" and at Point2 as "R B M". but because the AS path length is equal, they'll still be able to do closest exit for M's prefixes. If that were happening, then we'd consisder the routes to be consistant, at least for shortest-exit purposes. What we are seeing, though, is "R A M" at Point1 and nothing at Point2, likely because Randy doesn't consider "R B M", received from one of his peers, to be a customer route. the tone of the "consistent route" policy is to keep one provider from having to carry packets cross-country in both directions: Full agreement. in this example P does not have to do that In your example, you are correct. But your example doesn't match the situation that Randy is describing. --Vince