Every single time!
The new Call of Duty: Black Ops patch went live yesterday, and PS3 players are furious. According to Eurogamer.net, the new patch took the problems with multiplayer connectivity to eleven. There is a thread on the Black Ops Forums titled "The retard 1.04 patch" where gamers have gone to vent in hilarious and sometimes vulgar fashion. Note: that is not the official name of the patch. The new patch was supposed to improve matchmaking between moderate to strict NAT types (Network Address Translation, for those of you who don't speak 'tech'*.) Apparently, the patch has had the opposite effect.
The bottom line is that PS3 owners are having their connections interrupted, systems freeze, and a general crappy time playing the game. Josh Olin, the Treyarch community manager, says it's you, not them. If you are having problems:
That means your Router has a strict NAT, causing your lag. It's not the game
Of course this begs the question, if it's all in the router, why aren't Xbox LIVE gamers with strict to moderate NATs noticing problems? Or are they?
*I took French in high school and failed two Spanish classes in college, so I'm going to assume that I understand technical lingo; allow me to explain 'NAT.' It appears that your modem is a lot like the UN, and it has a crap-ton of little translators in it, trying to get information to all of the diplomats. Well, some of us have strict translators, who know only two or three languages. Others have moderate translators, who know a handful of languages, and then there are open translators, who can talk to everybody.
Those of you with strict to moderate translators simply can't get your messages (bullets) to your dignitaries (opponent's face area) fast enough, while those with open translators can negotiate peace talks with everybody. In this case, 'negotiate peace talks' means shooting billions of bullets into you while you literally shoot at the place they were just standing two seconds ago. You may empty a clip into someone and yet they can casually knife you. Check out your kill cam. See how none of your bullets hit him? Congratulations! Your Internet connection is not as fast as you thought it was! That, or the host's connection is as they say: 'teh suck'.
However you want to think of it, all this miscommunication leads to a veritable World War III in your Sony box, but instead of thermonuclear annihilation, your PS3 freezes up or your session is ended. Same difference. This might not be exactly how it works (it probably isn't), because I made it up based entirely off of the first sentence of the Wikipedia article on NAT, but you'd have to be able to speak 'tech' to figure that out. Check out your router manual if you want to change your NAT.