In Canada they do open source backbone - and edge - routing still. On cheapo intel boxes with Quagga which is a forked child of Zebra.

Here are their Scottish economics

• Cisco Catalyst 3550 cost 13 ~ 30 CDNk$
• Foundry BigIron 4000 cost 12 ~ 20 CDNk$
• Intel 2U Dell 2650 cost 2 ~ 3 CDNk$

Read the whole paper. Funny, like going back to 80ies routing SW (fuzzball) on general purpose cpus, only a lot smaller and cheaper. But then again, CISCO had beta products and no service then an a BBN switching gateway cost $200k.

All by an inspiration through MU doing history on radio

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