This hasn’t been going on for fifteen years.
This socket closed stuff started about two years ago.
Now, it’s quite plausible that third parties such as ISP’s are the ultimate cause of this… however, it’s also fairly widespread in it’s happening. If said third parties are dropping EVE and only EVE (which they are) due to inactivity then the issue still remains in EVE’s court.
The fact that it only started happening about two years ago also means that either a) a large portion of the ISP’s out there suddenly changed their packet handling procedures, or b) EVE implemented a change in how their software sends and receives packets… either way:
Their software is not behaving in a manner that retains connections with various ISPs out there. The ISP’s will not change how they do things for a piece of software, as they are a service. As a product, in order to remain viable in markets where said ISP’s operate, EVE needs to adapt their methods to ensure that THEIR playerbase can actually remain connected to THEIR product.
Honestly, I don’t care about blame, but I know that I haven’t changed ISP’s and this problem started after an EVE update occurred, and persists to this day. What I would recommend is instead of cheap hacks that try to trick an ISP into thinking that it’s still connected, perhaps an ingame utility/tool/whatever that sends data to and from Tranquility on such a regular basis that ensures that you don’t get dropped for inactivity for no reason.
With the random drops, some of which happening in the middle of combat, pvp gameplay in the areas affected by this is not tenable. I like murder, and I hate the idea of being killed by my connection because it ‘got bored and quit’.