100 cost path c 126 in the example illustrated in fig2 ip device 202 includes a single multi path router instance 224 in an alternate implementation an ip device such as a media gateway may include plural multi path router instances at least one of which executes a path cost calculation algorithm multiple times to calculate path costs to a destination through a plurality of network interface in the ip device fig3 illustrates an exemplary data network 300 with an ip device 302 having plural multi path router instances according to an embodiment of the subject matter described herein two conventional ip devices 304 and 306 a plurality of network devices 308 310 312 and 314 and a plurality of network segments 316 318 320 322 324 326 328 330 332 and 334 ip device 1 302 ip device 2 304 ip device 3 306 as well as routers rt 1 308 rt 2 310 rt 3 312 and rt 4 314 may be configured with instances of a spf algorithm such as ospf or te ospf for example data network 300 may be a voip network to provide ip telephony service to voip subscribers in fig3 ip device 1 may include two multi path router instances 336 and 338 five network.