Command and Conquer 3 connection issues

[Common Sense]

Playing online, usually with friend hosting a 2vs2 game;

I always connect to friend (yellow radio symbol thing), however, 7/10 people that join the game always stay at the telephone icon stage (hence we cant start playing) with me. We have to constantly kick people and hope that someone will join that I can connect to. The success rate of people connecting to me seems a bit better when I'm hosting the game.

I have a dlink router and have enabled "send delay" in the network options. I have also opened the 8088-65535 ports. I have no other network issues besides this.

Any ideas or similar experiences?

 

[M00T]

And have you tried playing the game without the router in the picture?