route to server help

I play cod 2 frequently and for the past month my ping has gone way up. The problem is my route to the server I play on has changed. It used to go through 12 hops and now for some reason I go through level3.net and have 18 hops (and they go to kc, to chicago, back over to Denver and finally to Dallas). I have complained to my provider but they keep saying they have no control after it leaves their system. It switched back to the old route for about 4 days and was fine now I am back on level3. Is there anyway to manually force my route to go through something other than level3? or any other suggestions to fix this?

 

Your ISP is correct: They have no control of the packets once they leave their network. You can try complaining to Level 3, but I doubt that they will do anything, unless someone made a mistake.

It doesn't hurt to ask, but based on your description, it sounds like "someone" upstream changed to Level 3 for their bandwidth, and the additional hops are the result. I'd need to see the trace route logs from before and after, though.

But, if you have the trace route from before and after, send them along with your email to Level 3 support - if someone made a mistake somewhere a network engineer will look at it, say "Whoops!" (or something similar ), and then hopefully take whatever steps are necessary to fix it. Or, it could be a permanent, planned change, and there's nothing to be done.

With regards to the question of whether or not you can force the route: Short of having access to the routers, no.

Your only other options at that point would be: Change to a server that is closer, or if that isn't an option, switch ISPs (find out who they get their bandwidth from, first) to one that doesn't use Level 3.


Regards,

dj