On Sun, 14 Apr 1996, William Allen Simpson wrote:
Likewise, a lot of traffic from Ann Arbor Michigan to Columbus Ohio travels via MAE-East, despite the fact that Merit is already connected to CICnet, which is in turn connected to Columbus (both OSU and OARnet). The problem is, Merit has no "bi-lateral peering" with CICnet.
This is not exactly correct. CICNet Michigan(AS266) peers with Merit over a FDDI ring in Ann Arbor. I suspect that the problem you are running into is that CICNet Primary region (AS1225) which does not have physical connectivity to AS266 or Merit provides connectivity for OSU, and peers with OARnet. This problems has nothing to do with who has what bilaterals with whom, or who is willing to peer with whomever else, but rather a simple constraint based on topology. So please choose a more apropos example next time. Thanks. -dorian