When routing goes too far

I know that IP routing has a lot of redundancy built in, and it's a "network of networks" but this is taking things too far.

I live about 8 miles from where I work. Our datacenter is there, and we have a pretty big connection (dual T3s, plus T1 backup, maybe more). On a whim, I traced the route to our website.

c:\>tracert www.mony.com



Tracing route to www.mony.com [208.217.238.50]

over a maximum of 30 hops:



  1    17 ms    21 ms    37 ms  syr-24-24-20-1.twcny.rr.com [24.24.20.1]

  2     9 ms    11 ms    10 ms  fas3-1.syrcnydrh-rtr01.nyroc.rr.com [24.92.225.65]

  3    26 ms    10 ms     9 ms  srp2-0.syrcnyspp-rtr04.nyroc.rr.com [24.92.227.217]

  4    18 ms     4 ms    10 ms  srp10-0.syrcnyspp-rtr01.nyroc.rr.com [24.92.224.137]

  5    26 ms     8 ms    10 ms  srp8-0.syrcnyspp-rtr02.nyroc.rr.com [24.92.224.138]

  6    31 ms    19 ms    13 ms  son0-1-1.albynywav-rtr03.nyroc.rr.com [24.92.224.170]

  7    20 ms    21 ms    16 ms  pop1-alb-P7-0.atdn.net [66.185.133.229]

  8    28 ms    16 ms    17 ms  bb1-alb-P0-1.atdn.net [66.185.148.100]

  9    25 ms    23 ms    25 ms  bb2-nye-P3-0.atdn.net [66.185.152.71]

 10    30 ms    21 ms    22 ms  pop1-nye-P1-0.atdn.net [66.185.151.51]

 11    24 ms    18 ms    16 ms  204.255.173.33

 12    27 ms    22 ms    17 ms  0.so-6-0-0.XL1.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.21.78]

 13    15 ms    19 ms    22 ms  0.so-1-2-0.XL1.NYC1.ALTER.NET [152.63.21.21]

 14    41 ms    16 ms    18 ms  0.so-0-0-0.XR1.NYC1.ALTER.NET [152.63.19.85]

 15    35 ms    31 ms    32 ms  507.ATM7-0.GW2.BUF1.ALTER.NET [152.63.25.41]

 16    38 ms    34 ms    31 ms  mony-t3-gw.customer.alter.net [157.130.25.198]

 17    40 ms    33 ms    36 ms  206.67.239.48

 18    51 ms    37 ms    36 ms  www.mony.com [208.217.238.50]

Now, really, why the hell must I go to one end of the state, then all the way to the other end, then back to the middle? It's no wonder MS Messenger can't stay connected tonight!