Internet Poltergeist

So, what can make someone new to the 360 cry?  Constant internet problems.  In November of 2005, when a good friend of mine got his 360, I was flabberghasted by the idea that he could pop in Call Of Duty 2 and after a very minimal amount of time, start shooting Nazis and Allies around the world in the face.  And then he could put in another game and be on line in a few more minutes.  Coming from PC and PS2 gaming this was a revolution.  PC online gaming is a fractured system; every game needs to be set up individually.  And online support for the PS2, well, if you  already know, you're already laughing, and if you don't, don't ask.

So now I have my shiny Xbox360 along with Gears of War and Rainbow 6: Vegas, which are not only online, but as far as I can tell, some of the best examples of online play currently available.  I play GoW co-op with my aforementioned buddy (who I'm trying to get to join here) and I play R6:V with the guys from 2old4Tactics, which has been great.

What is not great is my problems with my internet connection.    Here is what happens at no set time or activity level, but regularly enough to induce screaming, crying, gnashing of teeth and rending of garments:

• Pages won't load on web browsers (both laptop and desktop).
• Vonage drops calls or won't get a dial tone.
• Connection drops to Xbox live or I start running around the map and realize that no one else is moving.
• And, that intermediate patch on GoW (which just got re-patched) made it impossible to play online.  At all.
• Today my wife had th internet and vonage fail and got a "Proxy Server failure".  WTF?  I don't use a proxy server at home!!

Here's what I started with:

• Cox Cable (6.0m down/ 768k up)
• Linksys/Vonage WRT54G2P (wireless G router with 2 Vonage phone ports)
• Linksys WGA54AG (wireless gaming adapter a/g band)
• my wife's Dell laptop
• my desktop wired straight into the router

Here's what I have now after trying every different configuration to get the internet to work properly:

• Bell South DSL (3m down / 512k up)
• Zyxel X-550 Wireless G adapter with 360 plugged straight in (yes, it's Live approved)
• Motorola Vonage Adapter
• Mywife's dell laptop
• My desktop with a wireless USB adapter.

As you can see, I've replaced almost everything.  I never have problems with signal strength, and these problems were around before the 360 (although, I'll admit, it was not as emotionally damaging then, but I was still tearing my hair out over it.  At least my wife doesn't think the 360 caused the problems.). 

I've have the problem no matter what for about 4 months.  Here are some solutions I've tried:

• The Linksys WGA and the Zyxel did not play nice, I could not get them to work together at all.
• I've tried with and without WEP.
• I've opened all the ports for the xbox on the router.
• I designated a static DCHP address for the xbox.
• I've made the Xbox a DMZ
• I've opened ports for the Vonage service
• I've unplugged vonage and gone without
• I've changed phone jacks or cable jacks for the 2 services (Cox and BellSouth)
• I've tried using manual network settings on the xbox
• I've called 1-800-my-xbox or whatever and that was 40 minutes of  "Yeah, it is approved.  Yes, I tried that, but I'll try again.  No I don't know"
• I've also called Vonage, Cox, BellSouth, and Linksys.

The thing is, all of the internet problems happen at the same time, but as far as I can tell, it has nothing to do with traffic, time of day, weather, or how many curse words I string together.  Sometimes, I'll get to the desktop when this is happening and run "tracert"  I see my happy little packets bounce past the router, into the modem and about two nodes down the line, and they die, and everything is lost from there on out.  Is this an internet poltergeist? Has Katrina screwed internet in Southeastern Louisiana forever?  Are these the solar flares I always hear about?  Is this why my TiVo died?

/end rant

If you're still reading this and any of this made sense, or if I'm a complete moron who's missing something obvious, let me know.  Seriously, if you fix it, you might just see some microsoft points in your mailbox.  I'm that frustrated and I know my wife is, too.  Any one who fixes this gets at least my undying devotion, if not a little goody for being a good samaritan.