Some additional info on the topic:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id- ... oute.html#.
After speaking to my friend he reminded me of a few things from a decade or so ago. There are numerous providers that ISP's purchase bandwidth from to get their customers on the internet. Some are good (and expensive) while others are not so good (and inexpensive). When I worked at 2alpha they bought bandwidth from one of the good ones as the primary transport, and in order to save costs they purchased from one of the not-so-good ones in case of outage of the primary. If memory serves they had weighting algorithms that sent most of the traffic down one pipe, with less down the other.
As you can see in the link above, a customer in Brazil uses an ISP that sends traffic to Europe via Miami which is likely a hub for South & Central America, the Caribbean islands, etc. on the way to the States and then on to Europe. Brazil also has ISP's that have fiber routes direct to Portugal, bypassing the traffic jam in Miami.
The potential exists in the States for an ISP to send traffic via different routes where two people in the same city could be connecting to iEN (in the D.C. area) via different routes. Just guessing that it is less likely coming from the corners. So while someone from St. Louis might have an ISP that gets there via Atlanta and then to D.C., someone else's ISP might go to Chicago first and then to D.C. If Atlanta does in fact have an overloaded router, then the player in St. Louis that routes through Atlanta over DSL might have disconnect issues, while his neighbor that goes through Chicago over cable bypasses the Atlanta router and plays fine.
Coming from Seattle we're all likely going to Denver, then Chicago, then D.C. as routers do try to send you via the shortest route. It wouldn't make sense to go from Seattle, to L.A., to Dallas, to Atlanta, and then to D.C.
timos
