(OT?) Anyone wanna address my ISP's issues? [CIDR/BGP question]

[Kevin Kinsey]

Elliot Finley wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Jun 2007 14:07:07 -0500, you wrote:
> 

>>
>> The DSL modem's outside (static) IP is n.n.n.70, the gw
>> is n.n.n.69, and the mask is 255.255.255.252.  From
>> inside, I can ping .70, but not .69 (and, needless to say,
>> nothing else, either).  From the outside, it's the
>> other way 'round.  Traceroute (from outside) shows different
>> endpoints for the two addresses (that is, the last hop 
>> before .69 is one router, and, when looking for .70, it's
>> another router (but not the one that leads to .69)).
>>
>> If I did my CIDR homework correctly, the net is n.n.n.68/30.
>> Using "BGPlay" (http://bgplay.routeviews.org/bgplay/), I get
>> the message: "The selected data sources have no information on
>> prefix n.n.n.68/30.  Please check that this prefix is globally
>> announced."
>>
>> My question: shouldn't it be 'announced', if the ISP intends
>> to route me TCP/IP traffic?  I apologize for my ignorance, 
>> but BGP isn't something I figured to need to know at this 
>> point in my life (although, it doesn't hurt to learn, usually)....
> 
> anything smaller than a /24 will be filtered.  The ISP would announce
> the larger block that your /30 lives in.

Thank you very much, Elliot; You wouldn't believe how hard it's been
to get anyone at, err, "tech support", to even address the issue.
It makes sense, I suppose, otherwise the global routing table 
would be much larger than it is (?)

Anyone up for further questions?  The .70 --> .69 route on the
modem has a metric of "5", but with the .252 mask, shouldn't it
be required to be one hop away?

Guess I need to head back to "class",

Kevin Kinsey