FEC (Fast Etherchannel) issues

[Tony Bourke <tonyb () globalcenter net>]

This looks kinda like the right place for this issue, apologies if not:

True or False?

FEC (Fast EtherChannel) is not suibtable for router to router trunking
because of the way FEC load balances

I've heard and read in various places (although nothing conclusive) that
since FEC uses the last portion of a MAC address and hashs it to determine
which 100 meg link a packet goes.  This is to prevent packets from
arriving on the other end out of order.

This would seem to suggest that FEC wouldn't work between routers or
similar layouts because there is only one MAC address on either end,
therefor packets would always go over the same link.  

Anybody have concrete details on this issue?  Does FEC actually determine
load balancing this say? is ther another way to configure this?  

I'm not real fond of FEC myself, and would like substantiated evidence in
an argument against it.

Tony

---------------- ------ -- --- -- - - - - -  - ->
Tony Bourke                         tonyb () isi net
Senior Technical Account Manager     703.925.9871
Frontier GlobalCenter