OH,
I read this in another forum:
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the type of data packet that Socom: US Navy Seals uses to send information over the internet is TCP (Transmission Control Protocol). now the way this protocol works is that it will send a piece of data over the internet to another computer (or player in the game). if this piece of data gets lost, then it was retransmit it.
now, with 56k modems, it has to send data to each user, and recieve data from each user. if the 56k modem lags down, everyone has to resend data to it over and over and over.
most internet games use udp packets. with these, if a packet is lost over the internet, nothing happens. the computer just moves on to the next bit of data recieved (this is why in socom we rarely see people disappearing and reappearing many steps later, but in games like unreal people will seeingly warp from one location to the next).
socom was made to be broadband only because the protocol that it uses is tcp and not udp. anything slower than a high speed internet connection and it lags the game. FOR EVERYONE.