A few months ago, Riot Games set out to optimize the Internet for League of Legends and its player base. In an effort to combat lag, the player-focused MOBA developer drafted up a roadmap to address ping discrepancies on the NA server, and ultimately build a dedicated network for League of Legends traffic.
In order to address the multiple factors, such as routing paths and packet loss, affecting players’ connection quality, Riot has made considerable progress setting up a series of point of presence (PoP) hardware locations across the US and Canada. With phase one, or the North Bridge, largely completed, Riot has recently started tackling the second phase, or South Bridge, of its NA Server Roadmap. The South Bridge PoPs in Ashburn, Virginia and Atlanta, Georgia went live this week, bringing a majority of the eastern seaboard onto the grid. Essentially, the series of PoPs are meant to serve as an on-ramp for the full-fledged dedicated network.
As a general note, players in these regions likely won’t feel much of a difference in their ping…What players near these PoPs WILL experience is less packet loss and a more stable connection, since their data isn’t hopping across every internet exchange between them and the game servers… (via Riot Games Help & Support Boards)
A key component of setting up and implementing this direct network has been to work with ISPs across the US and Canada. However, the NA Roadmap team further clarify that “bringing a PoP online doesn’t work perfectly for everyone at the get-go. It’s the start of an ongoing process as we work with partnered ISPs to make sure they’re efficiently handing off your data to our network.”
Riot has started implementing, is working to implement, or is currently negotiating agreements with the 20 largest ISPs in NA. The ISPs currently working with Riot on the dedicated network are listed below (new partners in bold):
- Atlas Networks Corporation
- Bell Canada
- CenturyLink
- Charter Communications
- Clear Wireless
- Cogent Communications
- Comcast Cable Communications
- Cox
- CTS Communications Corp
- Eltopia
- Frontier Communications
- Google Fiber
- Hurricane Electric
- Interconnected Associates
- LS Networks
- NetRiver
- NTT America
- Pavlov Media
- Pocketinet Communications
- Rogers Cable Communications
- Saskatchewan Telecommunications (SaskTel)
- Shaw Communications
- Syringa Networks
- TDS Telecom
- TekSavvy Solutions
- TELUS Communications
- TeraGo Networks
- Threshold Communications
- Time Warner Cable
- Verizon
- Videotron Ltee
- Vision Net
- WiscNet
- Worldlink
- WOW!