RE: Route table growth and hardware limits...talk to the filter

[<michael.dillon () bt com>]

> Has everyone forgotten the "Tier 1 depeerings" of several 
> years ago?  i.e. 
> If you were pointing default at C&W, PSINet, Cogent, or 
> Level3 when they each had or caused depeering issues, parts 
> of the internet ceased to be reachable.  In such cases, 
> having full routes from multiple providers was the only way 
> to be automatically protected from such games.

Not so. Anyone who had sufficient transit was also protected from
the games. Lots of so-called regionals and tier-2 networks were 
shielded from this monkey-business. And, of course, they shielded
their customers as well. A tier-1 network operator who operates such
a fragile network becomes a single point of failure. And not just
because of peering as the AT&T frame relay collapse shows.

--Michael Dillon