It's not "OK"

Do the port forwarding thing they do on consoles. Other than that idk, it's likely your connection, or your connection to the people your playing with.

Sounds like something up with your connection or ISP. I seldom get disconnected and I play with a guy who hosts in the UK while I'm here in Canada. So you might have to start running tests to see what is happening.

If it's intermittent also take note of the time and weather conditions. It could be a physical line problem and certain conditions like condensation or rainstorms can be the issue if water is seeping into the line.

The sound issue still boggles me. You could always try to do some config tweaks.

I have intermittent issues with my cable (Comcast), relating to physical line congestion that occurs in my area.  I also live in an older complex, with shitty internal wiring.

It doesn't happen that often, luckily.  But it sucks when it does, and is really frustrating when you get disconnected mid-match.

I'd recommend running a command prompt "ping google.com -t" and just let it run in the background whenever you play.  When done, just press keyboard "Control+C", and it will end and give you the results. Look for any "request time outs."   If you get disconnected, alt tab out, and look for any time outs.

It's also a good way to determine if you are just connected to a shitty host, or if it is on your end.   If I see a bunch of rubber-banding, or enemies with zero health, you can verify that your command prompt is in the teens, (average 11-13 for me typically), and know that it's on the HOSTS end.

If hosts having a better connection icon, do you get less dc's? 3 or 4 bars instead of 2?

If you're by yourself, you might as well host if it dc's you on pug hosts. Better them than you

I am monitoring this now, but I haven't DC'd in 4 days. In that time I have had 7 sound dropouts in game, and many, many examples of rubberbanding, sudden frame rate drops, and lag. I have a good, hard-wired AT&T connection that tests excellent; I play Rocket League and I have a low ping (27 or less) with no connection issues. (I can't blame my connection for my unexplained losses.)

It seems to me that the host connection has a great deal to do with the problem. That could be the fault of the game engine, the host connection, the other player's connections, The host's computer capability, or the game server.

TL; DR It hasn't DC in 4 days!!

The answers seem to vary depending on one's own connection and region. Good local networks and playerbase combined with a stable fast connection basically renders the connection icon mostly meaningless.

If you see 1 or 2 bars for more than a second or two after joining the lobby, you're not going to want to play.

If you see 3 or 4 bars and it stays that way, chances are you'll be fine most of the time, though there are always exceptions.

However, based on people's experiences, there aren't too many regions where that's true. It was true for me, and I rarely had lag or connection issues when puging, but I'm near the former "silicon valley north." For people in some regions of europe the connection icon was completely unreliable. I suspect the region settings in matchmaking are a big part of the problem. I experienced very little difference between ME 3 and ME:A as far as stability went, meaning the region settings don't make things any better for those of us in well-networked regions. But man, do they screw everyone else. I hope that after DA:I and ME:A they learn to open up matchmaking again.

You have actually seen it change, ever? I thought they worked like the rest of andromeda: not really.