Stutter Stepping?

[Downdrop]

To be honest are you shure its SE's fault? if so wouldnt other datacenters also suffer from that issue?
I've read on here that the US-canada backbone connection isnt the best leading to a lot of issues. Couldnt your problems be located there?
The fact that other games or general internet is fine means little since they use other pathways. The only thing you can be relatively shure of is that your own installation or local provider isnt at fault.

I know at times connection was really bad for me when chaos datacenter was still in canada but all issues seem to have been resolved by the migration to europe.

Square Enix is the only entity that will have any pull with Level3 which is where the bottleneck is occurring. Companies that run major internet backbones don't deal with individual internet users, they deal with the ISPs and companies who are pushing lots of traffic through their networks. Until Square Enix puts the pressure on Level3 by threatening to move their datacenter elsewhere then we're all stuck with this problem. Square of course does not want to have to resort to moving their datacenter as it would cost them an immense amount of money. Instead, those of us routed through Level3 (which is a very large number of people, even if not the "majority"), are instead just stuck twiddling our thumbs waiting on SE to do something, ANYTHING. As of now, they have not even posted an update to let their customers know they're even working on the problem at all.

[Caitlinzulu]

Square Enix is the only entity that will have any pull with Level3 which is where the bottleneck is occurring. Companies that run major internet backbones don't deal with individual internet users, they deal with the ISPs and companies who are pushing lots of traffic through their networks. Until Square Enix puts the pressure on Level3 by threatening to move their datacenter elsewhere then we're all stuck with this problem. Square of course does not want to have to resort to moving their datacenter as it would cost them an immense amount of money. Instead, those of us routed through Level3 (which is a very large number of people, even if not the "majority"), are instead just stuck twiddling our thumbs waiting on SE to do something, ANYTHING. As of now, they have not even posted an update to let their customers know they're even working on the problem at all.

I dont think SE can put much pressure at the level3 operator unfortunatly. Shure they can threaten to move their server but the level3 operator knows the cost of moving servers would be huge (as you state) so i can imagine that they would call SE's bluff and just do nothing.
If there was an alternative backbone to use and everyone would pressure their local ISP to use alternate routing then perhaps the level3 operator could be forced because they wouldnt have any clients whatsoever.

Or does all this work differently?

[Magiksan]

To be honest are you shure its SE's fault? if so wouldnt other datacenters also suffer from that issue?
I've read on here that the US-canada backbone connection isnt the best leading to a lot of issues. Couldnt your problems be located there?
The fact that other games or general internet is fine means little since they use other pathways. The only thing you can be relatively shure of is that your own installation or local provider isnt at fault.

I know at times connection was really bad for me when chaos datacenter was still in canada but all issues seem to have been resolved by the migration to europe.

Wait so we have to wait for the migration for them to fix this issue? I already tested my provider.

[Downdrop]

I dont think SE can put much pressure at the level3 operator unfortunatly. Shure they can threaten to move their server but the level3 operator knows the cost of moving servers would be huge (as you state) so i can imagine that they would call SE's bluff and just do nothing.
If there was an alternative backbone to use and everyone would pressure their local ISP to use alternate routing then perhaps the level3 operator could be forced because they wouldnt have any clients whatsoever.

Or does all this work differently?

The only way to get the ISP to do anything about it is to ask them. They (Comcast), have already stated many times to many different people that the problem is not on their end and refuse to do anything about it. Comcast has been refusing to give people ticket numbers even who are calling to complain. So our only options are to cancel service with Comcast and try to find another ISP. For many people that's not a viable option. In many US suburban areas we don't get the choice between multiple internet providers. We get but one. Even if we could change our ISP, this often comes with very pricey early termination fees. My early termination fee with Comcast Business is $250, plus an additional 10% of the remaining overall total I would have paid. That means should I cancel my service today to find another provider, I would pay in excess of $380USD. That's certainly not going to happen for me just to play FFXIV when my internet works just fine.

Is it really Comcast's problem though? Ultimately, no.

Square Enix is the one who will lose business over it in the end, firmly making it their problem to deal with. Why should Comcast care if Square Enix loses business? They're separate entities.

EDIT: I also find it relevant to add that it's not just Comcast routing. Reports from Time Warner, T-Mobile Broadband, and other ISPs also use Level3. All of these ISPs are saying it's not their fault and refuse to do anything about it. So say I *do* pay the early termination fees and switch to a new provider.. there is no guarantee the new provider won't use the exact same route through Level3 making the hassle of switching extremely pricey and pointless.

[Galibier]

The only way to get the ISP to do anything about it is to ask them. They (Comcast), have already stated many times to many different people that the problem is not on their end and refuse to do anything about it. Comcast has been refusing to give people ticket numbers even who are calling to complain. So our only options are to cancel service with Comcast and try to find another ISP. For many people that's not a viable option. In many US suburban areas we don't get the choice between multiple internet providers. We get but one. Even if we could change our ISP, this often comes with very pricey early termination fees. My early termination fee with Comcast Business is $250, plus an additional 10% of the remaining overall total I would have paid. That means should I cancel my service today to find another provider, I would pay in excess of $380USD. That's certainly not going to happen for me just to play FFXIV when my internet works just fine.

Is it really Comcast's problem though? Ultimately, no.

Square Enix is the one who will lose business over it in the end, firmly making it their problem to deal with. Why should Comcast care if Square Enix loses business? They're separate entities.

I ran a WIn MTR test... latency spikes were not on Comcast... they were on Level 3 nodes... then I hit packet loss with SE's CSP. So Comncast seems to right, sadly, in this case.

[Caitlinzulu]

Comcast should care if comcast loses business. But as you stated that doesnt seem to be an option for a lot of people. Thats the "advantage" of a monopoly for you. And termination fee's for a isp contract seems ridiculously high. If I needed to cancel my subscription i would have to do it 1 month in advance and thats it, no other costs whatsoever. You can try to put pressure on SE but i wouldnt hold my breath for them to respond.
As a suggestion you dont have to cancel subscription early, just give them notice that you are canceling when your next subscription term is over.

[Downdrop]

Comcast should care if comcast loses business. But as you stated that doesnt seem to be an option for a lot of people. Thats the "advantage" of a monopoly for you. And termination fee's for a isp contract seems ridiculously high. If I needed to cancel my subscription i would have to do it 1 month in advance and thats it, no other costs whatsoever. You can try to put pressure on SE but i wouldnt hold my breath for them to respond.
As a suggestion you dont have to cancel subscription early, just give them notice that you are canceling when your next subscription term is over.

Comcast won't lose business over it. Square Enix will. This isn't a problem localized to just Comcast. It's a problem with Level3 which multiple ISP's use to route their traffic. Even if those who have the option of multiple providers switch to a new one, the chances are given that their geographical location has not changed, their internet routes will still use the same backbones.

Essentially that means the only two true ways to tackle this problem as a Square Enix customer is to move to an entirely different city, somewhere that bypasses the Level3 nodes causing issues, or to pay separate fees for a VPN which also I'm not going to do. If I have to pay for a VPN to use a service I'm already paying for, that's when I call it quits. Obviously the VPN is a much cheaper more viable solution but one that a subscription fee based service should not be forcing on their customers because of their poor choice of datacenter locale.

[Galibier]

Comcast won't lose business over it. Square Enix will. This isn't a problem localized to just Comcast. It's a problem with Level3 which multiple ISP's use to route their traffic. Even if those who have the option of multiple providers switch to a new one, the chances are given that their geographical location has not changed, their internet routes will still use the same backbones.

Essentially that means the only two true ways to tackle this problem as a Square Enix customer is to move to an entirely different city, somewhere that bypasses the Level3 nodes causing issues, or to pay separate fees for a VPN which also I'm not going to do. If I have to pay for a VPN to use a service I'm already paying for, that's when I call it quits. Obviously the VPN is a much cheaper more viable solution but one that a subscription fee based service should not be forcing on their customers because of their poor choice of datacenter locale.

Level 3 is indeed the Problem, and maybe SE's CSP. At this point however decent VPNs are actually pretty cheap and I think using them is a good alternative. Level 3 bases their contracts with the ISPs off of the amount of traffic they carry. Access to a VPN, atm, can be less than 10 bucks a month. That's like 2 lattes. It is also one less person using Level 3 nodes. The more people who use them the more Level 3 looses, the less money they can ask for in the next contract... so they are essentially forced to upgrade their nodes. It's how Capitalism works... Competition and right now the only competition with level 3 are VPNs, for the most part. Also SE isn't the only one with this issue... Trion has had it as well thanks to Level 3.

[Caitlinzulu]

Perhaps it wasnt a poor choice at the time they chose it? From what i read in other threads its sometimes peak hour based. Sounds like the line is way overloaded. Moving servers ,would be the easy way out. Consider that the cash-shop is supposed to be created to fund the move of chaos data center to europe, you can imagine the costs in moving the primal and (name escapes me) data center to US to be double that. Also who knows what the cost is for running a data center in montreal compared to a US city?
That combined could make a change of server location something that wouldnt be soon.
And wouldn't a move to US create problems for canadian players who would have to go through te same backbone?

[Downdrop]

Level 3 is indeed the Problem, and maybe SE's CSP. At this point however decent VPNs are actually pretty cheap and I think using them is a good alternative. Level 3 bases their contracts with the ISPs off of the amount of traffic they carry. Access to a VPN, atm, can be less than 10 bucks a month. That's like 2 lattes. It is also one less person using Level 3 nodes. The more people who use them the more Level 3 looses, the less money they can ask for in the next contract... so they are essentially forced to upgrade their nodes. It's how Capitalism works... Competition and right now the only competition with level 3 are VPNs, for the most part. Also SE isn't the only one with this issue... Trion has had it as well thanks to Level 3.

I wish I could bring myself to do it. I like the game, but if SE can't provide me with the service I have paid for, regardless of the reasons why they're unable to provide me with it, then I feel I'm entitled to refunds. I won't open my purse to throw cash at the problem, no matter if it's only 10USD additional a month, because that tells corporations and companies that it's okay to treat their customers the way SE is treating us now and really it's not.