<html><head></head><body><div dir="auto">My understanding is routing mostly follows the path of least cost... and is more complex then BGP makes it look, if two ASs have multiple handover points one still needs to pick one for each flow... and even for a simple route between two AS the forward and reverse path might use different hand-over points... think hot-potato routing.<br></div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="auto">On 25 June 2024 05:42:47 CEST, David Lang via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<pre class="k9mail"><div dir="auto">Ulrich Speidel wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1ex 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid #729fcf; padding-left: 1ex;"><div dir="auto">This can also lead to weird effects globally. For example, much of the traffic between Japan and New Zealand *could* in principle trundle down to Guam and from there to Sydney and then to Auckland. Which would be kind of shortest path. And occasionally it does. But just as often, you see it crossing the Pacific to the US West Coast (or from Guam to Hawaii) and from there back to New Zealand. Why? Good question. Was it because US backhaul carriers were cheaper for a while with the US dollar being soft and the Australian / NZ currencies surging in comparison? Were there government incentives for carriers to let traffic run through US territory for intelligence access (if so, the NSA would have to fear<br></div></blockquote><div dir="auto"><br>It's important to realize that BGP doesn't know how long any link is. it defines 'closest' by the number of hops.<br><br>so Japan -> LA -> Auckland is 'shorter' than Japan -> Guam -> Sydnes -> Auckland even though it's much longer, probably through more congested links, and higher latency.<br><br>David Lang<hr>Starlink mailing list<br>Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net<br><a href="https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink">https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink</a><br></div></pre></blockquote></div><div dir="auto"><div class='k9mail-signature'>-- <br>Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.</div></div></body></html>