Patent ID: 8880729

Claim:
A router comprising: a receiver configured to receive a request from a source; a retriever configured to retrieve a plurality of providers capable of servicing the request; a proximity engine configured to: determine network distances using a community weight table; and rank the plurality of providers based at least on weights indicative of the network distances each weight being a default value or user assigned and corresponding to a first Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) community attribute associated with the source and at least a second BGP community attribute associated with at least one of the providers in the plurality of providers, wherein a higher weight indicates a shorter network distance between the source and the at least one of the providers in the plurality of providers; a transmitter configured to transmit the request to the provider in the plurality of providers with the highest ranking; and an editor configured to edit at least one of the weights in response to a request to edit the at least one of the weights.