Internet is the network of networks each of which has heterogeneous characteristics. Therefore, routing in these heterogeneous networks has a great influence on performance measures of the networks such as delay and throughput. The protocols for Internet routing have employed shortest path algorithms which are classified into two categories: vector-distance protocol and link-status protocol. The vector-distance protocol is a distributed routing protocol using Bellman-Ford algorithm, on the other hand, link-status protocol is a centralized protocol using Dijkstra's algorithm. This paper traces these routing protocols in Internet and proposes an alternative routing algorithm. The algorithm proposed in this paper, which is called a maximum capacity path algorithm, is a centralized protocol that finds a path with maximum capacity rather than shortest-path. Comparative test runs are made for a simple network with 10 nodes. The results show that in some network topologies a maximum capacity path algorithm outperforms the exsiting algorithms in terms of delay.
