| Michael, | I believe the primary purpose of the /19 filtering was to reduce the | size of the route table. The increased stability this caused was just | a happy side affect. This matches my memory. I believe filtering predated the implementation of flap dampening in IOS, but I could be wrong. The idea of using very strict dampening as a means of accomplishing the same goals as filtering was a later development, and came with the expectation of crunchy routers being able to handle large stable routing tables and distribute and process large amounts of NLRI in reasonable amounts of time. Sean.