FerreusSteelTip Posted November 5, 2015 Share Posted November 5, 2015 Are you in game, everything fine - full bars - then BAM, red bar? 2k - 6k ms? If customer service can't help you. IF your ISP can't help you. Then this post might just. Because here is what's happening: Between our ISPs and the game servers we choose, you'll find data centers that handle the traffic of all our signals. Typically there are little to no issues. Since about June/July however, a company known as Level 3 Communications has been in disputes with a handful of ISPs. Most notably, Time Warner Cable, AT&T and Verizon. What these disputes are about? There's no official answer. Just a lot of speculation. As a result of these disputes; we the consumers are being unlawfully punished. Level 3 Data centers everywhere have started slowing down signals from these ISPs they're having disputes with. Throttling our signals in some cases. Causing us to lag in game, to have terrible spikes. Sometimes even making games completely unplayable. There is NOTHING the game's support can do about it. NOTHING your ISP WILL do about it. UNLESS, you complain. All of you. Everyone. And not JUST to your ISP. There are other people you can complain to. To exercise your RIGHT as consumers. To show these companies that while they can have their business disputes, it should never and WILL never end up with us, the consumers, used as leverage. How do I know all of this you might ask? and how can you determine if THIS is your problem? I'll tell you. Firstly, I have spent the better part of a month bouncing between different support technicians. Spent a better part of a month living in my command prompt. SPENT that month doing research, putting together all the pieces, and FINALLY getting confirmation. Because I spoke to a top tier technician at my ISP. They confirmed for me all my speculation. They said that the company was in disputes with Level 3. Not just them, but a small list of other ISPs as well. The agent told me the only way to get this fixed is to cause pressure. To raise awareness. Because there was nothing he could do to fix it himself. Thing is, us consumers aren't the ones responsible for fixing any problem with the service we pay for. No. It is the service provider's burden! So while yes, we should complain to them. To the ISP, to Level 3 - we should ALSO take this matter to the FCC and the FTC. Because when we sign for these services. We're not told a third party can take our signal hostage. We're not told that there may be issues with the SERVICE that the SERVICE will, essentially, refuse to fix for us. That they expect us all to wait, be patient for it to resolve itself. Meanwhile paying full price for the service we are unable to use for the purposes we purchased it! This is how you, reading this, can figure out if YOU'RE having these problems. Go to your command prompt. Which you can find by right-clicking the windows button on the task bar, or simply opening up search and typing cmd. Once you see it, run it as administrator. It's called running it in elevated mode. Do NOT be afraid of doing this. You will not mess up your computer. You're not changing anything. And if you do it wrong, it will tell you. This is easy. Now, whichever game you're playing. You want to be logged into it while you do all this. Be on your character so that the signal is active. You're going to need the server IP address. Now, you can find this by various means. Some games provide them if you look. Others you have to dig up yourself. You can use a netstat commands to track it down if necessary. Here's what each do: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff961504.aspx ONCE you have your server number, in your command prompt type this: pathping "then the IP number, minus these quotes" also be aware of the space between pathping and the IP. Once it runs. You can do a tracert Basically the same as pathping. Except you're replacing the word 'pathping' with 'tracert' Still a space between it and the IP address. NOW, you may have to do this multiple days to catch level 3. Because they use programs to hide their name when pinged, but it isn't perfect. If you see that your connection is fine on most hops, but times out in one or two in between. THAT is the level 3 node you're looking for. Tracert may show it despite their software. and here's how you know if it's them. Most the time, when you catch them, it'll have their name in the info. You'll see "level3" somewhere in the code. Also, if the IP number starts with 4. it's them as well. As they own all IP addresses that start with a single 4 You can confirm it's them by copying the number - which, right-click inside the black of the command prompt and then click 'mark'. Highlight whatever you want to copy with your cursor, then hit ENTER. You take that IP address and paste it in your browser. It'll show you who it belongs to. Once you are certain level 3 communications is the culprit. It's time to start complaining. Save your pathpings and tracerts. Can do so in notepad via txt format, can take screenshots with the print screen key and paste them in paint. Or you can simply copy the information and paste it into a word document. Once you have them saved, make sure you blur out or delete your OWN IP address. Which is typically the first and second hop. You don't want that to get into the wrong hands. Now, where to complain. FIRST, call and complain to your ISP. If you're with time warner, I was told by the tech there to go to their website: https://www.timewarnercable.com/en/support/overview.html Speak to one of their reps via chat. Have your saved pathpings and such ready. Ask them if they are able to send a ticket to Genoc. If so, give them the information. Tell them what's going on and have them send it to Genoc. IF you have a rep that can't, ask for another rep. Far as other ISP providers. Call, ask for their top level techs. Tell the agent your problem is with level 3 communications throttling your signal due to disputes with the ISP. After you've complained to your ISP. Complain to Level 3 via twitter. #your game in the tweets. So others can see what's happening. You can also complain to them via their facebook. https://www.facebook.com/level3/ Tell them you know about their disputes with your ISP. You know they are throttling your signal. And that you won't take it. If they don't resolve their issue, you will take it to the FCC and FTC. Which is what you should do anyways. Put even more pressure on this situation. You may not think it'll work, but there are cases in the past where enough people complained and the government has FORCED businesses to solve the problem. Here are links to both the FCC and FTC: https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov This will not only help you, but help those others going through the same thing. And it'll help the games, who get all these complaints, figure out what the cause really is. And they TOO can put pressure on level 3 to resolve the issue. I'd say for a quick fix, switch ISPs. Only...we don't know who is all on that list fighting with level 3. You could try an wait this out. But it's been months already. How much longer? Even if you don't have the problem or don't want the hassle, I'd ask for myself and everyone else with this issue - please bump these posts, share them around, and tell your friends who may be lagging. Because this might be the reason. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts