I believe I am running 75/75 Verizon FIOS out of Bayside, NY (11361). Let me start by saying that I know Verizon FIOS has no issues with gaming that I know of as a policy as i've used Verizon FIOS to play World of Warcraft for years without a hitch as well as numerous other games including other MMOs.
However, recently, I picked up the MMO run by Square Enix. Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Their NA datacenter appears to be located in Montreal and operated by their partner Eidos Montreal. Now, I know also that Verizon has said they have no control over hops that don't belong to them which is why i'm bringing in the extra data from other users from other ISPs that also have performed traceroutes at my request that end up being routed through the same routers that I am and yet does not experience the problem Verizon FIOS users do. This would only indicate that the problem is on Verizon's end specifically to do with this application and/or the peering agreements Verizon has with vendors along the path to the Montreal datacenters.
Here is my WinMTR report to the datacenter during primetime while I am experiencing unplayability: https://i.imgur.com/pzXfHFD.png
I want you to note hops 6 through 14 indicating 10-15% packetloss. Most of these hops belong to TATA Communications.
First, I want to present a WinMTR report to the datacenter of a Roadrunner customer also in NYC: https://i.imgur.com/tA6WE1k.png
Take note that after he leaves Roadrunner's backbone, he runs through exactly the same TATA routers as I do from NY through Chicago through Montreal. All the same but no packetloss. Nothing. His connection is clean.
Here is a WinMTR report to the datacenter during primetime from a Roadrunner customer in Southern California: https://i.imgur.com/C5S8QPQ.png
While you can notice that most of the route isn't the same, you can notice that once it hits TATA's Montreal server, the route is the same. You'll also notice that despite this, the Montreal router onwards does not experience 10-16% packetloss despite being the exact same routers that i'm routed through as a Verizon FIOS customer.
Now here is where it gets interesting because here is a WinMTR report to the datacenter from a Verizon FIOS customer located in Dallas: https://i.imgur.com/cKsLHcX.png
You'll notice that once it hits the Chicago hop, he's routed exactly the same as I am, and yet, he doesn't experience the packetloss issues that I seem to experience.
Before you point the finger at TATA Communications, allow me also to submit a FIOS user from Rhode Island: https://i.imgur.com/X1bT9mn.jpg
What you'll note is that rather than be routed through TATA to the Montreal datacenter, instead he's routed through Level3, the vendor Verizon made a special bilateral agreement with. And the result is that rather than packetloss, he gets all of his hops spiking to 500ms. And even if you did blame TATA Communications, the question remains: Why does it affect East Coast Verizon users but not the East Coast Roadrunner user? And if TATA has beef with Verizon why doesn't it affect the Dallas FIOS user?
So you'll say it might be a hardware issue with my ONT that you'll need to reset or maybe my Verizon router is problematic and send me another one, but I ask you to hold that thought for just a second!
I collected this data from a thread I started on Reddit hoping to get to the bottom of this: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/3ea6a5/do_you_lag_do_you_not_lag_use_fios_dont_use_fios/
What you'll find if you peruse this thread is that a large number of East Coast FIOS users also experience the same problems I do. Here's a quote from user Lanbatal: "Northern VA, FiOS. Game is unplayable without a VPN. The number of lost packets is ridiculous."
Here's a TCP ping report from another NoVA FIOS user SMYFFL reporting 14% packetloss: https://i.imgur.com/7lPIBFz.png
So from my end, what I can gather appears to be an issue with Verizon FIOS. It could be that Verizon FIOS has accidentally or inadvertently flagged FFXIV traffic as P2P traffic and throttles it during primetime in extremely high usage areas (which explains why NYC/NoVA area that routes through NY/Boston sees this but the Dallas guy doesn't). What I and likely the other customers ask isn't for Verizon to admit fault but rather to finally figure out why this is happening only to this one specific application and only to Verizon East Coast customers and to help us use the service we've paid for.
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