Maybe it's time to talk about rational routing

[Brian E Carpenter]

Good news down under, it seems that TelstraClear is now supporting
native IPv6, announced in Australia but observable in New Zealand too,
with much less HE tunnel than before.

However, it seems to be time for a discussion about routing policy.
The traceroute below reminds me of IPv4 around 1990. Is it really
optimal to route from Auckland to Brisbane via Hong Kong and Los
Angeles? Of course there are all the usual commercial constraints
on policy, but this seems to be worse than that.

C:\Documents and Settings\bcar071>tracert www.apnic.net

Tracing route to www.apnic.net [2001:dc0:2001:11::211]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  2001:df0:0:2006::254     % Uni Auckland
  2    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  2001:df0:0:1::17:af
  3    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  2001:4403:0:106::101     % TELSTRACLEAR-V6-NZ-UNALLOCATED-20050513
  4     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  2001:4403:0:106::1
  5     1 ms     *        1 ms  2403:e800:fd18:fe00::1   % Reach Global Internet HK
  6   127 ms   127 ms   127 ms  i-0-0-4-0.tlot-core01.bx.reach.com [::ffff:202.84.142.118]
  7   127 ms   131 ms   127 ms  2001:504:13::24          % ONE-WILSHIRE-PACKET-EXCHANGE
  8   132 ms   127 ms   128 ms  10gigabitethernet1-3.core1.lax1.he.net [2001:504:0:3::6939:1]
  9   126 ms   135 ms   126 ms  10gigabitethernet1-3.core1.lax2.he.net [2001:470:0:72::2]
 10   135 ms   135 ms   135 ms  2001:504:13::3b
 11   290 ms   290 ms   290 ms  pos-0-0-1.cor02.syd03.nsw.vocusconnect.net.au [2402:7800:0:1::ba]
 12   290 ms   290 ms   290 ms  ten-1-3-0.cor01.syd03.nsw.VOCUS.net.au [2402:7800:0:1::59]
 13   290 ms   290 ms   290 ms  ten-0-2-0.bdr01.syd01.nsw.VOCUS.net.au [2402:7800:0:1::c6]
 14   302 ms   303 ms   303 ms  2402:7800:0:1::9e
 15   303 ms   303 ms   303 ms  apnic.ipv6.brisbane.pipenetworks.com [2001:7fa:9::4]
 16   304 ms   303 ms   304 ms  2001:dc0:2001:11::211

Trace complete.

    Brian