Sticky thread for NA tech support for NTT has now moved and been locked...

[NephthysVasudan]

Do you have a dataset to back this claim up?

You where doing fine...then you had to go and blow it by being utterly ignorant.

[Neri]

Where does the other games' servers located? Do they share the same route to SE?

[Kerwin]

I honestly missed this. Please link where a moderator says that it is specifically NTT's issue?

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post4672219

[Remyogic]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post4672219

Oh, I saw that post. There is nothing in there that specifically states that this is NTT's issue. Twisting and putting words in people's mouth to try and back-up your feelings is not doing your case any good.

In fact, it states that investigations led to no issues with the datacenter connection to NTT (Which means SPECIFICALLY this is NOT SE's issue) and that they have not been able to isolate any issues within NTT's network that are causing the connection issues.

It further goes on to say that you should contact your ISP regarding their connection to NTT. You should know, this does NOT mean just the physical connections to NTT's networks, it means that if your ISP has a poor agreement with NTT and it's traffic is low-priority on their network...........that is an issue your ISP needs to correct. But you later outright reject that, because why? Your ISP won't do anything about it and it's easier to play martyr on these forums?

Again, hold your INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER accountable for your INTERNET SERVICE...............go figure the logic in that?

[Kerwin]

Quit being ignorant to the fact that I already did contact my ISP multiple times in regards to the issue Rem. The moderators specifically state that this issue stems from THEIR upstream ISP.

So please, re read their statement carefully.

SE investigated their own server, but they did not take any further action against NTT other than informing them of the issues which will get no where unless pressured by SE.

As we can clearly see with how moderators are locking down tech support threads, they have no intention of pressing the matter further with NTT and would rather cut their losses letting the people suffering either deal with it or unsub.

[Remyogic]

The moderators specifically state that this issue stems from THEIR upstream ISP.

So please, re read their statement carefully.

"Thank you for patience and assistance while we worked with the upstream ISP in question to investigate the connection issues that have been reported throughout the thread. These reports, details, and traceroutes aided our infrastructure teams in conducting detailed investigations into the difficulties connecting to FINAL FANTASY XIV through certain upstream ISP servers. As a result of this investigation, it was found that the issues were not related to the FINAL FANTASY XIV servers. As such, we have also been sharing the collected data with the upstream ISP in question for further reviews and investigations.

We apologize that these difficulties have been ongoing, and that we don’t have an immediate resolution to share. Although we have no direct control of the situation, we’ll continue to work with the upstream ISP to investigate whether there are any specific troubles that they can isolate and work towards a solution. We’ll also share any additional updates should they become available.

If you wish to make detailed reports about your connection difficulties, we recommend contacting your local ISP directly to try to improve your connection with the upstream ISP.

Thank you again for your patience and assistance throughout this process."


Highlight it for me, please. I can't find that statement anywhere in here.

What they DO state is that they have passed on the data to their upstream ISP to investigate what the issue MAY be and if there is a solution. NOT that the issue IS definitely NTT. HUGE difference.

Also, I'm not ignorant to the fact that you have contacted your ISP multiple times, what I'm (apparently) ignorant to is how if your Internet Service Provider can't fix your Internet Service, that then means SE is responsible?

[Kerwin]

the upstream ISP in question

This reply comes from the original locked thread. See the link in my OP.

My ISP is not responsible for a network outside of their control. I was told this multiple times.

[Remyogic]

This reply comes from the original locked thread. See the link in my OP.

See though, you aren't answering my question.

I never debated whether or not SE talked about the upstream ISP (NTT). I even acknowledged it.

BUT, YOU state that SE has SPECIFICALLY placed the BLAME for the ISSUE on NTT, which is NOT true. THIS point is what I am failing to find in your references. Saying that you are passing on data to someone to further investigate the issue and saying that it is definitely that parties fault are two VASTLY different statements.

My ISP is not responsible for a network outside of their control. I was told this multiple times.

Of course they aren't, you shouldn't have to be told this at all, much less multiple times. What they ARE responsible for though, is the quality of your internet service and how their network connects(peers) to other networks and the priority of their traffic on those networks. Which seems to be the root of the issue.

Every national ISP has priorities for data traffic through their NAP's (which it seems San Jose is one for NTT) as these points are major processing points for NA traffic through the network exchange and high-priority traffic must be guaranteed QoS. What you are fighting is that gaming traffic in general is already a low-priority data type universally across ALL networks (not just NTT), plus your ISP seems to have routing issues through NTT; which is likely occurring through whatever Tier 2 Network THEY use to connect to the national upstream networks.

If your ISP is a low priority peer in a 2 person line, you don't feel it. If your ISP is a low priority in a 100,000 person line........that sucks. But again, trying to hold a game responsible for your internet is just.........blatantly dishonest.

All we can clearly see from the thread being locked is that people are barking up the wrong tree and refuse to move on to the correct one.

[KisaiTenshi]

What they DO state is that they have passed on the data to their upstream ISP to investigate what the issue MAY be and if there is a solution. NOT that the issue IS definitely NTT. HUGE difference.

Also, I'm not ignorant to the fact that you have contacted your ISP multiple times, what I'm (apparently) ignorant to is how if your Internet Service Provider can't fix your Internet Service, that then means SE is responsible?

This is where I point out that "everyone must be having problems, so someone must already be aware of it" groupthink tends to rear it's ugly head. I will tell you point blank that 1 person reporting a problem is "the user", 100 users reporting the same problem is probably worth investigating. Usually at that point you still have to push back to get more info other than "your stuff is broken" useless type of reports.

That's why SE asks for traceroutes. Usually the people reporting the problem will be in the same geographic area or share the same ISP from the geographic area (this happens a lot in ad management, and in "why does your website take so long to load" issues too.) That then narrows things down to:
1. What is the least common denominator. This will almost certainly be the transit peering point. But who's side it's on is not something that can be figured out from end users since some routing will switch based on cost, and some based on latency (eg VoIP and streaming gets higher technical priorities, and "bulk" data like ftp, non-SSL http, and filesharing apps get sent to the bottom.

2. Not everything is directly the ISP.

Consider two different scenarios. One where one ISP sent out a batch of faulty equipment, and one where the electrical service company was doing maintenance.

In the case of the ISP's faulty equipment, that ALSO tends to be geographically situated. So for some reason, say, UPnP might be dropped once the devices fill up their NAT table. That might only affect a dozen or so people across several areas that were served by the same warehouse. But because they all did the traceroute and saw the same problem, immediately they decided the problem can't be their equipment, must be the other guy.

In the case of the electric company doing maintenance, they tend to always do maintenance when the least amount of people will be affected unless it's going to affect everyone equally, then they just do it during business hours. Anyway regardless , perhaps said electrical company was doing work all along a 50 mile stretch where fiber is laid and one of them cut the fiber. So now comcast or whoever's fiber that is, goes from having 100% capacity in a region to 25%, as their customers get routed around the damage and go via another route. This results in not affecting very much during midnight-6am, but 8am rolls around and peoples cat videos aren't loading and it's the ISP's fault. The ISP would need to figure out who cut the fiber, and so forth. In larger cities, an electrical fire can also blow through a few million dollars worth of equipment that won't be replaced for a month if there's no local spare.

Now, that said...

3. Most people are incapable, if not incompetent of diagnosing any kind of internet connectivity problem. They get told to reboot their stuff, and it just keeps working for a few more days/weeks.

Hence, when you report a problem, and the tech asks you "did you reboot it?" Don't answer that with a yes/no, answer that with the last time you rebooted it and have them log it. Then every time your game drops, call them up and have them note it again. Often rebooting the modem clears the service log, and thus there is nothing for the ISP to check and it's vital to report problems within minutes. So don't reboot it until the tech tells you to.

Another problem that I've run into. "double routers". NAT only works over a single router. NAT is "Network Address Translation", or basically it was a trick everyone started using around 1997 to share one internet connection with every computer in the house and telling the cable companies to shove it about needing additional outlets (cable companies still charge people for extra outlets, even though there is no extra service cables entering the premises.) If your ISP has provided you with a router. Don't have anything else behind it other than unmanaged switches. The reason is that double-NAT results in traversal problems as UPnP commands only hit the router closes to the PS4/PC/Mac, and not the router that is actually talking to the internet. Most of the time people don't notice a problem until two people try to use the same game behind the same router, then the upstream router only sees one request. I've even seen "session jacking" type of problems come about back when AIM was the IM everyone used, where two people talking behind the router would get responses sent to both machines. Since games only expect their own traffic, they will drop a connection.

But that last scenario is a very specific thing that happened, and I doubt that would result in more than a handful of people actually having that problem unless they are on a shared connection with their landlord/apartment Wifi, who also plays the same game.

SE can only file tickets for connectivity issues on their side. If SE tells NTT and NTT tells Comcast, Comcast doesn't know who reported the initial problem unless the Comcast customer also reported it to their ISP. So due diligence, if you report the problem to SE, also report it to your ISP. As customers, most of us have no pull with NTT, so that is something only SE can do.

[Remyogic]

snip

EXCELLENT POST! I agree with everything said here and it was stated in a very intelligent manner.

What I want to clarify is my contention:

I am not against reporting the issue to SE so that they can pass the data on to NTT to cross-reference with the report also made with the users ISP. This has to be done in order to even begin getting at the problem.

In fact, the MOST productive way to go about this issue is to call your ISP and complain; write down the time, date, and ticket number; THEN provide your ISP, time, date, and ticket number along with your trace-route done at relatively the same time-frame so that SE can pass that info on to NTT and they can have an intelligent discourse with your ISP about the issue. But that is not happening. People don't want to take that level of responsibility or commitment to it, but expect SE to.

What I contend is the general thought process of "some" of the people opening these threads that "I contacted my ISP, they said 'sorry for ya' so now I'm gonna lynch mob SE because my internet service is somehow their problem now".

THAT is where I have an issue.