[c-nsp] BGP sessions won't establish.

[Roy]

Hi,

We are working with a new ISP for service.  This one is via metro 
ethernet.  They require two BGP sessions.  One goes between the ends of 
the ethernet.  The other BGP session is between a loopback interface on 
our router and a loopback interface on one of the ISP's other routers.

The first session comes up just fine but the second one using loopback 
interfaces will not establish.  I did some packet traces using a Linux 
box and tcpdump and it would seem that the packets from our loopback 
session go into the metro ethernet and disappear.  When their router 
tries to connect, the packets arrive and responses are sent but they too 
seem to be ignored.

The ISP blames us of course.  I told them the packets seem to be going 
out the switch port to the metro ethernet. 

Has anyone seem such a problem?  Is there some strange magic limit to 
the number of peers or something?

Roy