This behaviour is correct. UREGINA1 is "nearer" to you than MAINE, because of the heavily loaded international lines, and DIST1 won't use a server unless it has a local recipient for that server (which is probably not the case at CANADA01). Thus you have to go as far as UREGINA1 to find a backbone server with a local recipient, and mail travels twice across Canada. The answer is, again, to use DIST2, which would make use of the CANADA01 server to explode the stuff. Eric