I was dealing with a similar problem for a month earlier this year. I would disconnect almost instantly when connecting to any online game. Ventrilo would also work fine until I attempted to talk(ping would go from ~30 to 30000+ and DC). TV was fine, as was browsing the 'net and anything else that did not require upload.

After a bit of testing on my end I was able to track the issue down to my ISP. Somewhere out on their network there was a bad hop that was causing serious packet loss and pretty horrible latency. Running a speed test to Japan would report full downstream and <0.1 Mbps upload on a 35/35 fiber connection.

In the end there was a bad card in one of their local distribution boxes. Once they swapped that card I was back in business. To convince them it was something on their end and not my machines took 10+ support calls, 6 technician visits, 2 ONT replacements, and 3 routers.


FFXIV appears to be heavily reliant on your upload bandwidth. If you are on a pooled connection(cable) or on a connection with a low maximum upload(ADSL) try the following to test and see if the frequency of linkdeaths decreases:

-Connect during off-peak hours. (10AM-2PM and 12AM-4AM)
-Close any upload heavy programs (BitTorrent, P2P filesharing) before connecting.
---You may need to reboot to clear out existing TCPIP Half Open connections from the above programs.
-Try running a speedtest to Japan via speedtest.net and check the upload bandwidth reported
-Run a "tracert www.google.com" from a command prompt (start>run>"cmd" or windows key+r>"cmd")
---check for dropped packets(denoted by *s) and large spikes in latency early in the trace.

If you call your ISP and explain the problem it should be pretty easy to get them to run an in-depth line test to check for issues out on their network. On the other hand, getting them to admit to problems on their end is a much more complicated endeavor.