Couple technical questions after 2 year hiatus

[Biirch]

1st... wife and I both play, or used to, and we had gotten permission to have our accounts on at the same time. We have since relocated in the real world and use another ISP... do we need to request another exemption or should we still be fine since the accounts are linked?

2nd... I have a great connection and isp... fiber. I used to have no issues on green with connection and gameplay. Now, I am getting constant lag and stutter... everything is happening 2-4 seconds behind keystrokes. ingame lag meter shows a lot of black disconns and ping wanders between 60-600+... I have tried using vpns connecting in various places on the east coast ( seem to remember the game server being physically located somewhere near Baltimore for some reason? no idea if that is accurate... )

would appreciate any suggestions... running on a relatively new machine with a lot of resources and an up to date win11... if cant resolve the issue I am going to try older installs and hardware, possibly one of my linux boxes...