Issues, Workarounds & Localization

About 2 weeks ago I moved back into my old home. When I arrived, I noticed several issues with my internet connection. The first being a piece of crap Zyxel PK5001Z router that has faulty firmware. The second being a general connection issue with my local ISP, and the third, a massive packet loss found on a (What I'm told) leased backbone with a QWest router name. The first two issues have already been resolved. However, the third still remains unfixed. Since QWest is now a subsidary of Centurylink, I needed to contact them to possibly resolve the issue.

After 2 weeks of incompetent script reading tech support, a wrongfully closed ticket, two escalations to engineering and another closed ticket with an unsatisfactory resolution, I come here, in hopes that someone is capable of understanding and resolving my issue.

I keep getting a socket closed error. To my understanding this is a generic error message to inform the user of a connection issue with the server @ 87.237.38.200. I also access a VOIP server for Ushra'Khan, which happens to take the same route through this particular major backbone. Both encounter connection lost issues.

I decided to take some time to research the problem. I used a third party TR program called Pingplotter Pro. Upon my lengthy traceroutes, I noticed an issue with a backbone ip of 205.171.21.49 or router name: atx-brdr-01.inet.qwest.net. This particular hop was dropping a substantial amount of packets both ICMP and TCP on a test for the Icelandic CCP servers. The amount of packets dropped were substantial enough to warrant a call to the ISP who supposedly oversees the maintenance and repair of such an issue. After informing them with a dump file from the program, they ended up sending the escalation to a residential repair team who had no idea what the **** to do since it wasn't their job. Lucky me. After many more calls and having the issue re-opened and re-escalated, it was returned that this issue was outside the scope of their network support. Something was fishy here.

It was explained to me that this particular backbone is supplied and maintained by an entity that is several levels above any normal ISP, that even for Centurylink themselves, to contact this entity would be like trying to contact a president and that also, they didn't even have a contact number for this entity. I called bullshit immediately. Though with my limited scope of networking knowledge and how a business operates under leased assets, I suppose it could be a possibility.

As of now, I have no other options. I have exhausted all possible avenues to resolve this issue with my ISP. The only thing left that I can possibly do to fix this issue is to subscribe to a VPN service that just so happens to avoid this particular backbone. It was also suggested to me that I try to use a different DNS and alternate DNS ip within my router. I could be mistaken, but I thought this trick was only useful for web pages, not for contacting and maintaining long term connections to game servers.

Anyone that is capable of seriously understanding and resolving this issue, please post. I am not looking for an armchair quarterback enthusiast. If no one is capable, I can always head over to DSLR for a possible solutions.

As a side note, I did run a whois on that particular backbone. There is an email address and a contact number associated with it, unfortunately, no one responds or the number just sends you back to basic level tech support. http://whois.domaintools.com/205.171.21.49