Sprint → I know.. not Sprint but Virgin Mobile on the Sprint Network

"remember that the route that the internet path takes has nothing to do with your physical location"

What exactly does that mean? I would think being routed to another state would have a further negative impact on ping/latency. So far speedtest has shown two different locations I am being routed to, either in VA or down by Texas or the mid USA. According to that thread members suffered from increased ping/latency due to being routed far away from their physical location. Maybe for browsing the web or downloading it may not matter but it further impacts time sensitive gaming and is additional latency on top of already poor ping/latency for 3G data.

I am just trying to make this work the best I can. It's my only other option besides satellite out here and so far there is no info on if or when the Sprint tower near me is in process of being upgraded to lte.

The cellular providers run private lines* from the tower back to a central location and then out to the internet. This is a left over from the voice world... they claim it makes it easier for them to maintain it this way (in reality it makes it easier for them to bill this way ).

So say they know that their kansas location is overloaded, they will start handing out a texas HA... and so on and so forth... since your routed path is Device to tower; to private line; to wherever; and then out to the internet, when trying to test to a location near you will only show you how well the data center you are being routed through is peered with the local test.

*these days they also run virtual private networks back, so while it might not technically be their own line for all concerns and in the way it behaves it is a private line.

Alright so is there any way to improve latency and reduce lag? Is there something I can adjust through the modem, software I can download, system tweaks I can do to make 3G more bearable to play online. It's hard to hit enemies that are teleporting all over because their positions aren't correctly updated and a hit registration is failing half the time.

The game isn't reporting packet loss but ping tends to spike very often and choke spikes when this lag occurs. Also the game can't maintain consistent rates. The cl_cmdrate and cl_updaterate are set to 66 but the game can't maintain these rates and it drops below 66 tickrate for most of my gaming session. I tried dropping cl_cmdrate and cl_updaterate to 40/40 and 33/33 but I still have the same issue.

I thought you decided it was your local machine?

As far as latency on the cdma modem, just make sure it is in a stable position that doesnt move, and has strong signal... cdma/evdo has never seen great latency, even in lab environments.

Here is hoping they hurry up and sell that LTE device... the latency on the sprints LTE network is quite tolerable.

It's probably both my machine and my 3G. The former just amplifies the effects of the latter. I've heard some people can play online with 3G just fine and I would be fine too if it weren't for the abnormally frequent ping/latency spikes. I see players with ping over double my own and they seem to play fine.