Independent of the fact that the traceroute shows that packets are not
taking the most direct route (both Best and BBN are at Mae-West), your
complaint about high loss is valid.
This is an industry problem, but the problem is not as universal as
you may think. Merit has been measuring loss NAP to NAP. We've been
looking at this data and trying to provide useful summaries. Its kind
of drafty since Merit's data collection is not so good, but you can
get a vague idea of the conditions from the page:
(This page is temporary - don't point to it.)
http://www.brookfield.ans.net/ans/netnow/netnow.html
We're not sure of the accuracy of this data or the statistical
validity. In particular 1) Merit's method of storage doesn't provide
markers between data sets, 2) cummalitive probabilities of 20 packet
samples are fairly worthless for looking at the probability of losses
below 5%. (The perl programs are all in the same directory so if you
see any bugs please tell me. 
\begin{aside}
Probability of 1% to 4% loss could be estimated by assuming data sets
are uncorrelated. For example, the chance of 2.5% loss or more P(2.5)
is (1 - ((1 - P(5))**2)) * (1 - P(10)), or in english the estimate
probability that one of two samples is zero times the probability that
the other point is no worse than 5%. Or something like that. Apply
Bayes theorem of joint probabilities. But is the data uncorrelated?
\end{aside}
Curtis
ps- wrt what's being done about it, this is an attempt to provide
insights into loss rates as per your point #2 but more for the purpose
of meaningful measure than any kind of guarantee.
2. Develop meaningful quality-of-service standards that can be used
to guarantee reasonable performance in terms of end-to-end drop
rates, delays, and downtime.
Though our loss is among the lowest, we're adding circuits to bring it
back so it is zero most of the time, where it used to be and where it
belongs. I guess this is the reason for the "state of the Internet"
segment of NANOG tommorrow. Other providers can speak for themselves.
pps- Its been a long enough thread already. Sorry to add to the
thread. 
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