High latency (MS) while playing World of Warcraft

First, the trace look good. You leave Cox by hop 6, and at 24ms, that is very good. Highest latency is between 12 and 13, second is between 7 and 8. Both of those are hops within Cognet, a back bone provider. You can contact them here.

What kind of latency do you expect to see? What is "normal"? Hop 12-13 is the peer between Cognet and Blizzard's servers. 

Last, have you posted this on Blizzard forum? Don't know why Blizzard would tell you to go to your ISP. Sounds like they don't want to do their job.  

Ok, I told Blizzard it was on their end, posted your response, and this is what they said back to me.

"As I mentioned previously, the issue appears in your pathping after you've left the Cox network but before you reach the game server. Your ISP would need to forward the information down along the connection path to have it investigated."

This seems to be a finger pointing game, as I just want this issue to be resolved.  If they are saying it's your problem, and you are saying it's their problem, where do we go from here?

""As I mentioned previously, the issue appears in your pathping after you've left the Cox network but before you reach the game server. Your ISP would need to forward the information down along the connection path to have it investigated.""

Umm, no.

Cox is a internet "provider". Think of them as your driveway for the internet. According to those traceroutes Cox is getting you to the internet fine. The data shows, and Blizzard agrees, the problem occurs inside the Cognent network Blizzard PAYS Cognent to host. So if Blizzard pays Cognent for this service, and its not working well, why doesn't Blizzard want to contact Cognent and let them know? You need to fallow the money to see who is responsible. Not only is this NOT Cox's responsibility to troubleshoot but it shows a lacking on Blizzard to support their own network. Meh.

Tell them I think they are being bad nerd!   Have a link to the thread? I will post it myself.  

Derek/Cox, refer to this thread that is locked now, but obviously it has been an issue in the past (with ATT&T/Cognetco)  http://forums.cox.com/forum_home/internet_forum/f/5/t/1146.aspx

Also, Health, here is the link to my personal thread for Blizzard. 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10716932137

Thanks! :-)

I don't like finger pointing anymore then you do. I think he only pointed back at Cox because he didn't know any other way to help. I think it needs to be escalated to the Blizzard equivalent of Tier 2. Usually they open up a ticket and call you back in a few days. If you can find the right person they are usually pretty good.

This guy isn't a Moderator though, he is just a Forum assistent, so he probably doesn't  have anyway of escalating problems in the data-centers. 

So now this is told to me, which makes it look like it's a Cox problem (Who is actually employing Cognet, Blizzard, or Cox?)

Cogent is a Cox peering partner or Cox' upstream provider, but not AT&T's. It is Cox' fault for using Cogent, so Cox is responsible to tell Cogent to fix the issue or for Cox to peer with someone else who will not have these problems.

Rman8981,

I know you probably feel like a "hot potato" right now with one person passing you back to the other! I did some research and there are other gamers (with different ISPs) that have experienced the same issues.  I would just like to reiterate the issue is outside of our server so unfortunately we are unable to troubleshoot their network.  The game server appears to be the issue as it is isolated to this game.  There would need to be some troubleshooting done on their end as well because everything is checking out on our side so far.

Ugh, yes, this is definitely hot potato.  This is very frustrating, as Blizzarrd has put it back in your court, saying the ISP has to choose a different backbone, etc.  Refer to my thread again, as there are new posts by Blizzard employees.  Let me know what you think, please, and thank you for your replies, Derrick.   http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10716932137?page=2

Here is my latest tracert:

Tracing route to 63.240.161.189 over a maximum of 30 hops

  1    10 ms     7 ms     7 ms  10.112.96.1
  2    12 ms    10 ms     9 ms  172.21.0.46
  3    12 ms    11 ms    15 ms  70.169.73.64
  4    11 ms     8 ms    17 ms  70.169.75.157
  5    39 ms    23 ms    24 ms  68.1.5.139
  6    22 ms    23 ms    22 ms  te0-3-0-20.ccr23.lax05.atlas.cogentco.com [38.104.84.69]
  7    22 ms    24 ms    25 ms  be2179.ccr22.lax01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.41.81]
  8    56 ms    62 ms    66 ms  be2066.ccr22.iah01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.7.53]
  9    70 ms    61 ms    64 ms  be2147.ccr22.dfw01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.27.18]
 10    77 ms    73 ms    76 ms  be2012.ccr21.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.2.113]
 11    87 ms    86 ms    84 ms  be2156.ccr21.ord01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.6.86]
 12    98 ms    87 ms    84 ms  be2003.ccr21.ord03.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.29.22]
 13   124 ms   129 ms   124 ms  att.ord03.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.12.86]
 14   111 ms   116 ms   121 ms  cr1.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.122.81.18]
 15   133 ms   207 ms   185 ms  gar18.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.122.99.21]
 16   117 ms   116 ms   119 ms  12.122.251.18
 17   112 ms   117 ms   119 ms  63.240.130.206
 18     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 19     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 20     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 21     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 22     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 23     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 24     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 25     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 26     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 27     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 28     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 29     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 30     *        *        *     Request timed out.

Trace complete.

Its a dead end over here. I have never heard of a ISP troubleshooting network issues outside their network. Other posters on the Blizzard thread agree this isn't a Cox issue. 

So, where does this leave me?  With my *** in my hand?  What are we to do here?  Both are finger pointing, which doesn't help me at all.

The only way your going to get Blizzard to do anything is if you open up a formal ticket with them and then raise alot of fuss on their forum until enough people complain. I have posted on your thread several times. If Blizzard won't listen to reason then vote with your wallet. There are TONS of way better FTP MMORPG out there. 

Or better yet, come play Warframe with me.  

https://warframe.com/signup?referrerId=523399041a4d801d64000000 

Yeah Heath I appreciate your posts on my thread.  This is the latest that Blizz has said to me, basically saying it's a Cox thing again.

Tugginnap,

There are many things that can cause latency, each case needs to be examined individually to isolate the issue. We've looked over your specific situation and it appears to be an individual issue. We're not seeing other reports of this issue running through the networks in your connection path.

I apologize for the situation you're in but I've already suggested all that I can.

I highly doubt your going to get anything else from Cox on this. The data supports them and the thread is marked answer. 

Maybe the better question is what Blizzard wants Cox to do?