  We analyze different strategies aimed at optimizing routing policies in the
Internet. We first show that for a simple deterministic algorithm the local
properties of the network deeply influence the time needed for packet delivery
between two arbitrarily chosen nodes. We next rely on a real Internet map at
the autonomous system level and introduce a score function that allows us to
examine different routing protocols and their efficiency in traffic handling
and packet delivery. Our results suggest that actual mechanisms are not the
most efficient and that they can be integrated in a more general, though not
too complex, scheme.
