Ok, so I live in Ontario, and I have a friend who I like to game with in Illinois.  However, for some reason, we always have wierd connection problems.  Here's all the information I can think of:

-I can send him text or voice messages, and he can send them to me.  We can also use Windows Live Messenger on the 360, and that works fine.

-When one of us starts a party, the other can't join due to 'connection issues'

-When one of use hosts a game of RE5 (demo), the other can accept the invite, but they will get kicked out and it will say 'this game has been cancelled'.  The host doesn't see anything at all, and the waiting screen continues (it doesn't say that anyone's joining)

-In Left 4 Dead, we always get disconnected when trying to join each other's games.

-We were able to get into a match of L4D once by both searching for the same gametye at the same time (someone we didn't know hosted).  However, we both lost connection after a few minutes of play.

-He only has 1.0 mb/s upload speed and 10 mb/s download speed, but he's still able to connect to others who are much farther away than me (I'm the only one he has problems with, and vice versa)

Can anyone give me any tips?  Much obliged.

if Rogers is your ISP...then id say its their fault.

I used to have similar problems due to my router. Once I set my XBox's IP address to the DMZ(Demilitarized zone) in the router everything was fine.

How do I find the router's DMZ?

Depending on the router, access the router config file. I'd goggle how to access your router's DMZ.

I usually get the same kind of problem, even though my friend lives only 6 hours away. Try reseting both your router(if you have one), your modem, then go to System settings(on your 360), connection settings, and Restore to Factory defaults. It doesn't seem like it does anything, but it does.