From: Dorian Kim <dorian@cic.net> On Mon, 15 Apr 1996, William Allen Simpson wrote:

...

I am admittedly confused here. CICnet provides connectivity from UMich to OSU, and the other Big Ten schools. CICnet is physically connected to UMich and MichNet, and also to OSU and OARnet.

This used to be the case. This is right now not the case. This maybe the case again in the future. Confused yet? Welcome to the world of academic networking. :) ... Depends on what you mean. AS266 traffic goes through MCI to get to AS1225. ... I'm still curious where you got this false impression of the situation.

Apparently, I was missing some pieces (that had not been described in your earlier messages), and remembering "old" information (as above). Both Merit and CICnet are connected to MCI. Correct? My new understanding is that the problem seems to be that MCI is stuck in the middle there, and for some reason shunts some (but not all) OSU and OARnet traffic off through MAE-East, rather than passing it more directly to OARnet (through CICnet or otherwise). And this is because of some _source_ based algorithm, since this only happens to Merit sourced traffic, but not other CICnet traffic, as you are using MCI to hold together pieces of CICnet? Sounds bizarre to me.... In any case, it still proves my point -- Merit and CICnet (and MCI) somehow view each other as competitors and don't cooperate to carry traffic by the "best" route, thereby clogging other areas of the Internet (MAE-East) at others' unknowing expense. Indeed, this sounds even closer to the UK situation, where they are too cheap to install a local European link, and instead steal from the other vendors' links to Europe through the MAE-East commons. WSimpson@UMich.edu Key fingerprint = 17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26 DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32 BSimpson@MorningStar.com Key fingerprint = 2E 07 23 03 C5 62 70 D3 59 B1 4F 5E 1D C2 C1 A2