Verizon FiOS Customers Unite

Are you having serious delays and packet loss during east coast prime time? Are you on FiOS?

Post here, we need to create a collective, a large group that acts together and gets Verizon to notice.

It is not SEs problem, but I hope they allow us to discuss this here and work together through a shared platform in order to force Verizon to finally address this problem.

Shouldn't people also post this in Verizon's forums?

I've been up and down on their fios forum posting in every single topic about this. Let's bump all of the relevant topics to the top over there. Im literally the only one doing it I know you could figure out which one was me.

Hi all,

Have been suffering with Verizon FiOS LAG Spikes too... for a few months now and I have been posting in their forums also, nice to know Im not alone in that respect (see Horrible lag spikes) .

Below is a partial screen shot with WinMTR showing my largest latency issue is at my first hop "L100.LSANCA-VFTTP-89.verizon-gni.net" Verizons equipment where my home router connects to with up to 1228 ms lag spikes which is 3 times higher than Im getting from another country...

As suggested to me; Using Windows resource monitor to get actual IP FFXIV connects to and WinMTR to trace connection, screen shot showing the results.
http://i1345.photobucket.com/albums/...psrw2rkveb.jpg

I think you might have a different problem seeing as your issue happens at the first hop. That is something that Verizon can fix easily if you get them on the phone. Try their support number. A lot of people on the east coast are having issues after the 5th hop which is according to Verizon 'beyond their control'.

Yeah, it's the Alter.net hop in NY/NJ where it peers up with Level 3 and neither company want to do a darn thing about it.

So, I am going to document everything here.

Chat Subject:FiOS Internet (Slow Speed)
Your Question:I need a level 3 tech who can actually resolve the issues FiOS has with FFXIV.
A Verizon Service Representative will be with you shortly. Thank you.
Agent Kancharla has joined. (17:39:15)
Kancharla : Chat ID for this session is 07231571884. (17:39:15)
Kancharla(17:39:25): Thank you for contacting Verizon FiOS repair support. My name is Kancharla. We appreciate your patience in reaching us.
Kancharla(17:39:35): May I confirm your telephone number as 4018210981 ?
Denise Campbell(17:39:41): Yes
Kancharla(17:39:51): Thank you for confirming the number.
Kancharla(17:39:56): Could you please elaborate the issue further so that I will be able to assist you better?
Denise Campbell(17:41:38): Yes, thousands upon thousands of FiOS customers have issues from 7 pm to 12 am midnight every night with Final Fantasy XIV. We experience terrible packet loss and latency with horrendous buffer bloat. The issue is how you route us and we need to escalate this to a team who can actually fix this. I am sick of the run around from FiOS. I have trace routes and MTRs and can link them to a post showing this is a FiOS customer issue, and a large one.
Kancharla(17:42:28): I completely understand how important is for you to work on the Internet. Not to worry, I will definitely help you today with the issue.
Denise Campbell(17:43:14): No offense Kancharla, I know you are just doing your job but unless you can actually change my routing and your peering away from the congested route, you can't help.
Kancharla(17:43:34): My Sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused.
Kancharla(17:43:34): I will do everything in my powers to fix the issue.
Kancharla(17:44:24): Is this happening only with the Final Fantasy or with the other websites as well.
Denise Campbell(17:45:30): Only with Final Fantasy where Alter.net (Verizon Business) hands off to Level 3. No other ISPs are having this issue, I can use my neighbors Cox connection with the game at the same times and get zero issues. I am at the point where I will switch to Cox if I do not get to an escalated tech team.
Kancharla(17:47:00): May I know what exactly was the Final Fantasy?
Kancharla(17:47:11): Is that an Online Game or Website?
Denise Campbell(17:47:11): It's an online game.
Kancharla(17:47:52): Just to confirm, are all the other websites; online games and internet working fine?
Denise Campbell(17:48:26): Only things that are not directly in Montreal where this route goes sour.
Kancharla(17:49:17): I apologize, when I trace router this website, I see that it is not the problem with the Verizon.
Kancharla(17:49:37):
I am glad to help you. Unfortunately my expertise is limited to the basic tools such as Voice; Video and Data.
Kancharla(17:49:42):
Not to worry, we have a dedicated team who will have a good Expertise on this.
Kancharla(17:49:47):
Would it be feasible for you to make a call, I will provide the direct contact number.
Denise Campbell(17:49:59): Yes, I can make a call.
Kancharla(17:50:19):
Thank you! You can reach our Expert Care team on #1-877-718-6716 and the team will be available 24/7.
Denise Campbell(17:50:35): I will call them sorthly. Have a nice day.
Kancharla(17:50:50): Is there anything else that I can assist you with?
Kancharla(17:50:55): Are all the Verizon FIOS services working fine to the best of your satisfaction?
Denise Campbell(17:51:11): Other than the internet, everything else is satisfactory.
Kancharla(17:51:21): Awesome! I am very glad to hear that!!
Kancharla(17:51:26):
Help is always available on your computer either at Verizon.com or with In Home Agent on your TV by pressing menu on your Verizon remote to access customer support. Thank you for being a loyal Verizon customer.

Guys, you have to call this number: 1-877-718-6716

As many of you as possible, call this, report this, do trace routes for them. This is our best chance at a fast solution. I just got off the phone with them.

Keep us up to date on this when you call that number and I hope you get some answers.

The tech said to have everyone here call, the more complaints the more likely we get a resolution.

i'm trying to call but i'm getting a run-around from this robotic woman.

Started seeing some hiccups around the Ashburne/DC corridor just a while ago as well. Spikes were hitting about 2x the norm...not game-breaking for me yet because I'm so close, but it was enough to feel a bit of stutter that isn't normally there. For those further away like Florida it may cause some issues as well.

I am also getting horrible lag until about 12AM EST. All action except for my own character will freeze for 6 to 10 seconds at a time and then everything speeds up and I am usually dead :-( I have 150/150 FIOS and actually never had an issue with my connection with anything else before this.

I called Verizon earlier today and spoke with there support line. They told me the issue was with the Final Fantasy server. I explained to them that there were several threads on the game forums as well as the Verizon forums as well as trace-routes which say otherwise. Once they understood that I knew what I was talking about, they created a ticket and told me that the more people who call in to create a ticket the more visibility the issue will get.

Bottom line - call the tech support line on the Verizon web site, provide your account details, be sure to let them know you are having no issues except this game and that many others are posting that this is a FIOS issue. Make sure you have a ticket logged so that it gets exposure. If you are not getting a ticket number, you are not getting the exposure the issue needs.

Good luck everyone!

I recently started playing this game and getting these annoying lag spikes, yes i have fios 75/75 this is the only game this has happened in.


really deters me from wanting to even play much

nyc if it counts

Help me collect data: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...dont_use_fios/

Spamming Verizon with phone calls doesn't help because all they'll hear is a bunch of people that say, "My game lags."

The result is that each person would most likely end up in the support script of getting their router reset, their ONT reset, and maybe get sent a new router. Instead, i'd like to be able to collect traceroute information both from people who have unplayable lag and from people who don't lag at all so a collective set of data that can't be refuted can be submitted.

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Originally Posted by keLston

Help me collect data: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...dont_use_fios/

Spamming Verizon with phone calls doesn't help because all they'll hear is a bunch of people that say, "My game lags."

The result is that each person would most likely end up in the support script of getting their router reset, their ONT reset, and maybe get sent a new router. Instead, i'd like to be able to collect traceroute information both from people who have unplayable lag and from people who don't lag at all so a collective set of data that can't be refuted can be submitted.

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Your hypothesis that it is Tata is wrong, as I am experiencing the same issue with Level 3.

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Originally Posted by Alexika

Your hypothesis that it is Tata is wrong, as I am experiencing the same issue with Level 3.

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My hypothesis is not incorrect.

The issue lies within Verizon and it's peering agreement with TATA and Ormuco.

Ormuco will be the routing vendor everyone will run to to get to FFXIV NA's servers because they are the vendor hosting EIDOS Montreal's datacenter which is hosting the servers for FFXIV in North America. What you'll find if you Google Level3 is that Verizon and Level3 are one and the same having agreed to a massive, bilateral agreement back sometime in April. Level3 used to be an independent vendor until this deal. As a result, even if you are routed through Level3, your issues will still stem from Verizon's peering agreements with either TATA or Ormuco as your routing through Level3 is owned by Verizon.

Further, you'll find this is entirely specific to Verizon's peering agreements as you'll find users with other ISPs in my Reddit thread that also traverse the TATA backbone or the Level3 backbone without experiencing the same issues as FIOS East Coast users. You'll even find a Dallas FIOS user traversing the TATA routers without these issues.

The fact that this does not inherently work is taxing. It was not always like this and I have been playing for almost two years now. I'm just wondering what changed to make this happen?

Well guys, FiOS once again has passed the blame off. I have demanded they put it in writing that they cannot fix the issue and I am going to tell FiOS that I am cancelling and not paying their contract termination fee because they cannot provide adequate service when Cox can. The true resolution to this is simple, get rid of FiOS. That is what I am doing.

I'm with a different ISP, and have been lagging since the start of the xpac. And like several others, the lag only occurs with FFXIV and FFXIV only. Anything else in my apartment needing a network connection works w/o a hitch for me (hard to think it's my ISP...if everything else is working properly you know).

....I just hope this is resolved soon. Been keeping an eye on these forums, since I stated my problem in that 'ISP, Throttling' thread...and I haven't seen any responses/replies from any admin/support/or whatever u wanna call them. Not yet anyway.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kelevra

I'm with a different ISP, and have been lagging since the start of the xpac. And like several others, the lag only occurs with FFFXIV and FFXIV only. Anything else in my apartment needing a network connection works w/o a hitch for me.

....I just hope this is resolved soon. Been keeping an eye on these forums, since I stated my problem in that 'ISP, Throttling' thread...and I haven't seen any responses/replies from any admin/support/or whatever u wanna call them. Not yet anyway.

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Fios customers haven't been dealing with this since just the expansion, this has been 2+ years for us.

you didn't say that in your original post

but whatever the case, FiOS customers aren't the only ones experiencing this problem now

Also, for reference, the number that they gave you to call: 1-877-718-6716

Yea, don't call that. It's their "premium" tech support line. It costs 15/month on top of your service or 90 dollars per incident if you don't have a subscription to it. That chat tech was screwing you.

It's more like a pissing contest between the last mile ISP's and the higher tiered ISP's they use for peering/transit---in many cases the last mile ISP's haven't purchased enough bandwidth upstream at the exchange points to support the bandwidth they've been selling locally. Eventually utilization spikes too high and congestion control kicks in...lower priority packets get delayed and eventually dropped if it gets too bad.

Basically... bandwidth has been oversold against the existing infrastructure we have been assigned to use, and the ISP's need to get their sh!t together in general and do something to better optimize the routes, which in some cases may require arranging for additional bandwidth in some areas.

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Originally Posted by Raist

It's more like a pissing contest between the last mile ISP's and the higher tiered ISP's they use for peering/transit---in many cases the last mile ISP's haven't purchased enough bandwidth upstream at the exchange points to support the bandwidth they've been selling locally. Eventually utilization spikes too high and congestion control kicks in...lower priority packets get delayed and eventually dropped if it gets too bad.

Basically... bandwidth has been oversold against the existing infrastructure we have been assigned to use, and the ISP's need to get their sh!t together in general and do something to better optimize the routes, which in some cases may require arranging for additional bandwidth in some areas.

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Unfortunately for us, FiOS is completely unwilling to fix it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alexika

Well guys, FiOS once again has passed the blame off. I have demanded they put it in writing that they cannot fix the issue and I am going to tell FiOS that I am cancelling and not paying their contract termination fee because they cannot provide adequate service when Cox can. The true resolution to this is simple, get rid of FiOS. That is what I am doing.

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I switched from cablevision to fios- and I had problems as well. Verizon has one of the worst customer service and they honestly dont know their head from their ass so I canceled them and cwitched back to cablevision. I know PC players can use a GPN and alot of people have had much better success, but that is not an option for Playstation users. Unless they get a large mass of people complaining, their not going to fix it. :(

On another note- SE you should jump over to WoW forums at least they get some type of interaction with tech staff and see how its done (even thats pretty pathetic)- I dont even know why the hell this forums is here. Pretty sad...

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Originally Posted by Lemuel81

I switched from cablevision to fios- and I had problems as well. Verizon has one of the worst customer service and they honestly dont know their head from their ass so I canceled them and cwitched back to cablevision. I know PC players can use a GPN and alot of people have had much better success, but that is not an option for Playstation users. Unless they get a large mass of people complaining, their not going to fix it. :(

On another note- SE you should jump over to WoW forums at least they get some type of interaction with tech staff and see how its done (even thats pretty pathetic)- I dont even know why the hell this forums is here. Pretty sad...

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I'm not sure why Square Enix doesn't interact on the forums. I do understand that it is a difficult decision on how to handle it. You bring up WoW forums. I'm not sure how long you've played WoW, but if it was a long time then I offer you the example of Tseric as the shining example of how even good interaction with the forums blow up in your face because of completely ungrateful jerks.

As for this issue, it probably makes sense. Square Enix can't really offer much. As far as i'm aware, Blizzard did something unprecedented with WoW and negotiated massive contracts with backbone providers (specifically AT&T) to help latency/bandwidth issues. This was possible because WoW at the time was pushing 9-10mil subs and still growing so they were making money hand over fist. FFXIV in comparison doesn't have that many subs. The last lodestone survey check indicated it was barely pushing 1 million subs worldwide. I don't know if that's enough revenue to negotiate a peering agreement on the East Coast.

This is a user-to-user forum... it explains this in the sticky welcoming everyone to this forum.

Their ISP has major backbone access...they actually have the EIDOS group registered with an ASN (but it points to Ormuco) and peers directly with some of the biggest names out there, amongst them Level3, Cogent, TATA, and Verizon Business (their alter.net/UUNET brand). A lot of it comes from the peering arrangements with these third parties. We frequently see issues first cropping up around the exchange point from our last-mile ISP's into these transit/peering exchanges.

Basically...people need to demand better from their ISP's to get this resolved. They are the ones ultimately determining how we get routed. You can test this with a VPN--if you find a tunnel that is more stable, compare the routing. You will likely see you either go through a different corridor to get to Montreal, or you use a different ISP for the peering/transit then when using your ISP's routing.

This has been happening, and happening to me, since nearly the beginning of the game. There was a huge outcry then too, but there was still no fix. I know I'm being a downer, but don't get your hopes up that anything will happen from this. The best I've heard is that if you basically harass them with calls they'll eventually configure your individual routing to fix it, but no one wants to do that or should have to do that.

Strangely enough, I had no problems from about February to May, so I thought it was finally fixed. I guess it was just lower player activity. :/

Hmm... Im getting packet loss at my 3rd hop 100% packet loss. That can't be right, did I do something wrong?

Cox will be at my house next Thursday to install services.

If it's outside Verizon's 'control' then it IS an SE problem. Supposedly, SE did maintenance on their routes, but I have noticed MORE lag since then.

I use WTFast to play, as w/o it (I live in PA) I can't even play this game I pay for at all.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by I_Punch_Bees

If it's outside Verizon's 'control' then it IS an SE problem. Supposedly, SE did maintenance on their routes, but I have noticed MORE lag since then.

I use WTFast to play, as w/o it (I live in PA) I can't even play this game I pay for at all.

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No, not even close. ISPs determine your routes.

Please, I will support this post till my fingers fall off. I cannot play the game with this packet loss. It is unbearable. My static is about to kick me because of this. it is the routing SE uses for fios customers during prime time! :mad:

Just as an idea try connecting to a non NA server. See if its stable. If it is stable then nothing at all SE can do on the issue even with complaining to FIoS as they won't really care. However if it is stable also then stop saying its just FF and that your having trouble connecting to any server hosted in Montreal, Canada area. Thing is the ISPs love to treat gamers as 3rd class customers because they know their is usually very little option in the US to change to a different ISP.

I remember years ago with an ISP I won't mention *cough* *comcast* *cough* when my internet was completely down as in NOT functioning at all. I called them up and they actually referred me to their online self troubleshooting guide telling me I should go there and try their trouble shooting tips. Amid probably minutes of 95% of my words being very harsh swear words they finally escalated me to the next level technician. The next level technician seemed to understand that I couldn't access the online trouble shooting guide since my internet was out after I explained it.

I'm in the NJ/NY area and I pay additionally for a tunnel program to even make the game playable during EST prime. :(

bogus.

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Originally Posted by LastFantasy

Please, I will support this post till my fingers fall off. I cannot play the game with this packet loss. It is unbearable. My static is about to kick me because of this. it is the routing SE uses for fios customers during prime time! :mad:

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SE doesn't determine your path. That is the policies of your ISP and their peering partners.

I unfortunately have lost the desire and will to play. I've been at it for months and nothing is being done. I can only play for a few hours a night during the week, from about 6-10 pm EST. The lag starts for me shortly after signing on I can barely even do my daily leveling on my dps which I had to make since I can't be trusted healing anymore. It might not be SEs problem, but in the end it is they who will suffer since this doesn't happen to any other games. Verizon isn't going to change their policy for one stupid game and I can't change providers, nor can i wtfast on the PS4.

So as of Friday last week when my sub ran out I am done playing. Good luck with your fight.

You know this is why I canceled Verizon years ago I would have packet loss as well as disconnects throughout the day, but especially in the middle of the day. When I tried to fix this issue by calling, and showing them trace logs they dismissed me as having a computer virus (the computer was literary new and bought it to play WoW). Well I can dismiss them too figuratively and literary as having horrible customers service and terrible internet service. I switched to Brighthouse and never had a problem since.

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Originally Posted by Mika_Stoneheart

I unfortunately have lost the desire and will to play. I've been at it for months and nothing is being done. I can only play for a few hours a night during the week, from about 6-10 pm EST. The lag starts for me shortly after signing on I can barely even do my daily leveling on my dps which I had to make since I can't be trusted healing anymore. It might not be SEs problem, but in the end it is they who will suffer since this doesn't happen to any other games. Verizon isn't going to change their policy for one stupid game and I can't change providers, nor can i wtfast on the PS4.

So as of Friday last week when my sub ran out I am done playing. Good luck with your fight.

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I'm in the same boat, nothing but mainstream providers here Comcast/Verizon. During the same time as you both would give me problems. So I gave up and went looking for a VPN and a ways to VPN PS4. Verizon like you say will not bend and I've heard of no one reporting that they successfully got a new route from them.

What I do now is VPN because that's the only way it'll let me play without RBing around 6-10 right after work :D