Bottom line, Quake is a game where no prizes are awarded, so just join a game if you want to have fun. You can win or lose no matter what your connection is, but asking that others suffer like you is simply unacceptable. Nobody likes getting the crap kicked out of them virtually or otherwise. Same goes if I am kicking the crap out of people on the server who have just learned Q3A can be played on the internet - it is not fun after about 10 minutes either. I enjoy playing most when I am pretty evenly matched with the other players on the server and the frag count at the end of the match is close.
Victory is much sweeter then.
Ping Equalization Been there, seen it, done it. I'm afraid I have to go with the flow on this. I pretty good on a LAN, but on-line, my modem just ain't up to it. Modem's suck for reliable pings. If your provider is heavily used then you're sunk and that goes for all players.