Thus the application effect being talked about.

Sure, I understand that. I was making a different assumption... That the sources of traffic were likely from downstream ASs, not "ISP A", or even B or C, and as such, the multiplication could happen per prefix. However, without knowing the number of "penalizing events", what constitutes a penalizing event, and aggressiveness of your peers suppression policies -- or the source distribution of the traffic, it's tough to tell. -danny