FC 26: Routing through USA causes 1000 ms ping spikes
Hello EA team,
I am experiencing severe latency and lag issues in EA Sports FC 26 caused by incorrect network routing on your side.
My internet provider is Deutsche Telekom (Germany). As the attached traceroute clearly shows, my connection is being routed through France (Zayo) and then to Ashburn, Virginia (USA) instead of reaching a European server like Frankfurt or Amsterdam, which would normally provide stable and low latency connections.
This results in massive ping spikes, sometimes reaching up to 1000 ms, making the game literally unplayable. These spikes cause heavy input delay, laggy animations, and frequent desyncs during matches. While players on other ISPs in Germany such as Vodafone or 1&1 have stable 20–30 ms connections, Telekom users are forced through an inefficient transatlantic route.
The issue occurs at all times of the day and is not related to peak traffic or local congestion. It is also not caused by my connection. Other online titles such as Battlefield 6, Apex Legends, Warzone and others run perfectly fine on the same network with low latency and no spikes. This issue is exclusive to EA Sports FC 26, which clearly indicates a routing or server allocation problem specific to this game.
This problem is not new. Telekom users and EA players have been reporting the same issue for years. Unfortunately, the response has always been generic troubleshooting like restarting the router or checking the connection, which does not address the real routing problem.
Details:
Provider: Deutsche Telekom (Germany)
Affected EA server: 159.153.71.17 (Ashburn, USA)
Observed route: Telekom → Zayo (France) → Level3 → USA
Expected route: EU nodes such as Amsterdam or Frankfurt (CDN77 or EA EU POP)
Actual route: Forced routing to US East Coast (Ashburn, VA)
This issue is reproducible and affects a large number of Telekom customers in Germany. It is also not limited to Telekom. Players from other countries and ISPs including the Netherlands, France, the UK and Scandinavia are reporting the exact same routing behavior to Ashburn, USA. This proves the problem lies on EA’s side or with its peering strategy, not with individual ISPs.
I kindly ask that this case is escalated directly to EA’s network or infrastructure team, not closed with Tier 1 support replies. Please provide a ticket or case ID so this can be tracked and referenced properly.
EA has publicly promised improved server infrastructure and better connectivity for FC 26 in Europe. What we are experiencing, however, is the complete opposite. Routing EU players through the US creates extreme latency spikes and gives other players an unfair advantage. This is unacceptable for a competitive online game.
If this is caused by peering decisions with transit providers such as Zayo or Level3, this must be reviewed and corrected as soon as possible.
This issue has already been discussed on Reddit, X (Twitter) and several ISP forums across Europe. Many players are affected. If it is not addressed properly, we will continue to document and escalate it publicly to gather more affected users.
We need EA to review its server allocation and routing policy for European customers and ensure proper EU peering or reassign affected accounts to EU datacenters.
Thank you for taking this issue seriously.
LP_Soldier6
