Computer Networks with Compact Routing Tables

The routing problem in computer networks is traditionally solved by providing detailed routing information for all destinations at every node. We consider the problem of routing messages with only a small amount of information at every node. For example, for every connected N-node network a scheme can be devised such that every message can be routed within O(√N) routing decisions. Improving on an observation of Santoro & Khatib [3] for trees we derive a general method of routing messages in arbitrary networks using tables of a size corresponding to the number of links at a node, while utilizing all links in the network.