Sad, tired rant from another FFXIV player...

[Joey-Zaza]

I don't understand why Verizon doesn't help their customers re-route bad connections to game servers.

I have been having issues for months with FFXIV, where during peak hours it lags like crazy.  I get massive packet loss and ping spikes up into the 500s for hours and hours and hours and the problem is getting worse.  In addition, I'm not the only one, hundreds and hundreds of people have this problem.  A mere google search for 'FFXIV Verizon FIOS' will tell you everything you need to know.

This is a real problem, and it seems like Verizon doesn't care.

I have asked for help from Verizon several times.  I have made several phonecalls, ending in 'not enough people complaining', and have issued so many tickets.  There are so many people here and in the FF Forums and on reddit complaining about Verizon and their poor routing agreements I just don't understand why we can't get a serious reply about what the issue is?

Is it bandwidth?  Is it that your routers think that FF is a P2P route but it's not?  Why can't they help us?

FFXIV is a MMORPG run by Square Enix a large company.  It is not in some childs backyard.  It is also not their responsibiliy to control routing issues to their game servers it is the responsibility of our ISPs.

I can't even play the game anymore, and it is so frustrating to me.  Usually when you have a technical problem with something, you seek out ways to get it fixed.  This has been a huge rollarcoaster for me to even get someones attention.  Anyones attention.  To just acknowledge, to me, and hundreds of other people, that there is an issue, and an apology.

Furthermore, is this considered a breach of contract by Verizon?   I pay for 75/75 internet, and since I am lagging basically 100% of the time (I work during the day so I come home, play, but GASP, I can't!), I do believe that I have a case here to get out of my contract free of charge.

Is anyone else on the same boat?

[smith6612]

You can complain to the FCC if the issue is believed/proved to be due to a peering dispute or shoddy peering. The FCC will be looking into these complaints very soon, so start filing them now.

Square Enix's data center, if it's not operated by them, can usually help by shifting traffic to other available transit providers, which link up to Verizon, which will help route around the problem. Verizon won't assist in a similar fashion due to the nature of their network, and their standard network policies. Verizon Residential always uplinks to Verizon Business (the Tier 1 provider), and Verizon Business either requires people to do settlement free peering and exchange equal traffic, or to have people pay (insane prices...) to connect up to Verizon. Only at which case, will Verizon help shift traffic to the paid links.

Keep in mind too, while I'm not pinning Verizon at fault here, they do also have to adhere to certain traffic policies with their peers. Verizon cannot simply dump all traffic to another path if it means it's going to increase cost (either monetary or network capacity). Verizon, like many other providers, programs a system of weights and measures into their routers by means of a cost value. Some transit provider paths are defined as a higher cost, others are defined as lower cost. Based upon where the traffic has to go, the routers will choose the lowest available cost. Data exchanged between the routers, based around the BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) help to determine this.

Most transit providers, including Verizon, adhere to "Shortest route possible" rules for cost. Basically stating, Verizon and other providers will try to dump the traffic to someone else's network as soon as possible, meaning at the nearest POP, where the traffic will either hit a "low cost" short haul provider which will do the same thing, or hit a "high cost" long haul provider that will carry all the traffic across the world or country. What this causes in areas with high residential usage? Congestion at the peering points for the first "Shortest Haul" provider, meaning Verizon <> whoever.

The final thing to wrap up on this is that the route taken from your connection to the server, is not always the same route that the return path will be. Perhaps you go from Verizon to TeliaSonera at the nearest POP, and then Telia carries your traffic to Square Enix's Datacenter. The datacenter might be shotgunning all of your return traffic to Comcast, who might be handing off to Level3 in a "shortest path," taking Level3 to the nearest POP, and then returning to Verizon. Or, the return path could also go Square Enix, to Comcast, to Verizon, and Verizon does the long haul AND last mile delivery (high cost route). 

Some food for thought to help with troubleshooting. Since Verizon is the common carrier here we need to see the path on both ends to determine the route, and find out if this Verizon to fault - which it may be given Verizon's recent past.