An illustrative corporate network device (100b) may be operably connected to a corporate edge router/firewall (120b), which is operably connected to the IP-based network “cloud” (800). Furthermore, another example end user device (100c) may be operably connected to a mesh network, which is operably connected to a plurality of other devices comprising the mesh network (320a-320d), at least one of which is operably connected to the IP-based network “cloud” (800). The commercial IP-based cloud (details not shown for clarity) may includes one or more routers, switches, and telecommunications circuits operably connected in order to move packets from an ingress router to an egress router, or between an ingress router and an edge caching device.

An illustrative IP-based network cloud (800) is the commercial Internet backbone as provided by ISPs and network providers such as Level 3, Verizon, and others. Within the IP-based cloud, support services such as an edge caching device (not shown), such as those provided for commercial content distribution networks (CDNs). Additionally, one or more Domain Name System (DNS) services (910) are provided hosted on one or more IP-based network servers operably connected to the IP-based cloud using the protocols and techniques well known to those skilled in the art. In some embodiments, a network attached database server (920) is provided and is operably connected to the IP-based network cloud, and is used as described below to provide a database of route metrics.