The basic disconnect here is that you seem to think that BGP is to be used to dictate policy to other networks on how to reach your network. That is not and has never been the case. When I learned BGP back in the 1990s, it was explicitly said that you control your outbound traffic with your BGP policy, but that all you can do is try to influence the decisions of other networks for your inbound traffic (using a combination of prepends, communities, and somtimes other tricks), but sometimes they'll take a path that isn't what you'd prefer (and you just have to accept that). Just like your outbound policy is 100% in your control, so it is with every other network. We always took that kind of thing into account when choosing where to buy transit. When not buying from a "big guy" with a well-connected nationwide network, we'd check BGP announcements and traceroutes to see where things went. -- Chris Adams <cma@cmadams.net>