Blizzard renews TeliaSonera agreement
by Mike Schramm 
May 18th 2009 at 7:00PM
Blizzard has renewed their agreement with a company called TeliaSonera to provide bandwidth for them in Europe. They just made a very similar deal with AT&T for the US -- it's the bandwidth that connects their servers to the millions of connections that lead back to your computer as you play World of Warcraft. Paul Sams, Blizzard COO, says they've been pleased with the service, and that the contract renewal was for two years.It's interesting that we've seen Blizzard keep both of these agreements intact, but we already know that they'll cancel relationships they don't see as working (with the notable example of Netease's takeover in China). Of course, there are tons of factors that go into players' connections (including this server connection as well as your own ISP, your router and computer, and a number of other facilities and stops in between), but it would seem that Blizzard is happy with the way things are going in both the EU and the US with these providers. Of course everyone's personal experiences are different, and we've certainly seen our share of connection issues, but in general, the infrastructure on the networks is in a pretty good place.
[via WorldofWar]
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
DCd May 18th 2009 7:32PM
oh woe, got kicked from an UD 25 man due to connection problems leading to bad dps. was my own computers fault though.
on a side note i seem to be first, lol
Feor May 18th 2009 7:35PM
Hopefully it works out and they end up doing the same for us Aussies + Oceania.
Hoggersbud May 18th 2009 8:21PM
Wouldn't you rather they get a contract with somebody willing to run local servers?
Coldforge May 18th 2009 8:39PM
Lightbringer just went offline and you break a story like this!
this is laughable.
Duncan May 18th 2009 11:01PM
AT&T are the cause of many peoples connection issues. When the forums are flooded with disconnect issues, Blizz states there is nothing they can do about it since it is AT&T.. and yet we all know they purchase the bandwidth and have an SLA.
It can be weeks, sometimes months before issues are resolved.
Nordigo May 18th 2009 11:07PM
I don't know what it's like in other countries but in mine TeliaSonera is a joke.. It overcharges for no reason (been there, experienced that), the customer service is sub-par, and while the network covers 99% of the country the quality is abhorrent for a country-wide provider.
thevitruvianman May 19th 2009 6:22AM
On the connection I use whilst at university (Virgin Media in case you were wondering) WoW is near unplayable, my latency is usually around 1000-4000, which makes raiding and pvp pretty much impossible. The general speed of the connection is rubbish anyway (even though we are paying for the 20mb service), most games are laggy and using video streaming sites like youtube can be very frustrating at times (30 mins to buffer a 2 minute video anyone?).
However, WoW is particularly bad, and having done plenty of research on the forums, it turns out that many Virgin Media customers have a problem connecting to the EU servers. Inevitably, when a traceroute is run, people discover that they are timing out when they reach the TeliaSonera servers. Blizz themselves have stated that the problem lies with Telia and they can do nothing about it. So it makes me wonder why they are actually renewing their contract with them.... it seems that Blizz doesn't really care about the quality of service their customers get, as long as they are getting a cheap deal on bandwidth.
I'm not normally one to whine about WoW, but you try playing with several thousand latency for a year and then see how you feel about it.
QQInsider May 19th 2009 12:04PM
It's not just Virgin, customers of many other UK and EU isps have the same connection problems because of broken routers in the Telia network. You only have to look at the EU support forum to see all the traceroutes that show the problem is there. And this has been going on for years.
The thing is, when this happens the problem then persists for weeks, because it seems thats how long it takes Telia to get off their arse and do anything about it. Wtf kind of service level is that?
Example:
http://koitsu.wordpress.com/2009/01/26/increased-network-latency-to-europe-servers-part-2/
Antistes May 20th 2009 3:19AM
Are you seriously complaining that your University network doesn't support online gaming very well? :) I know you might mean your dorm's connection but I get a mental image of someone alt-tabbing from their essay to play whilst muttering "damn latency".
thevitruvianman May 20th 2009 11:09AM
@Antistes
I seriously wish I WAS on a university network right now. I've been in halls of residence at two different universities and the network I had access to in both was lightning fast and great for gaming. But as I stated, I have Virgin Media connection, which of course means I am not on a university network. I live in a private rented house with a bunch of other students, and we pay £32 a month for what is supposed to be Virgin's highest speed service. I would think that would give me the entitlement to play WoW without having to put up with constant lag and disconnects.
I also have to say that I find your 'mental image' of me slightly insulting. Just because I play WoW doesn't mean I'm some kind of dropout who prioritises gaming over his work. I'm currently studying for a postgraduate diploma in architecture (I already have a degree), and I don't think I would have got this far if I had that kind of attitude. Please don't make assumptions about people like that.