madden 2003 online play: will we have to upgrade to 2004?

I`m considering daily buying Madsden 2003. I`d raelly like to daily play it head-to-head with a friend of mine, but was fundamentally wondering how the online clumsily play worked. Specifically, will I have to painfully go through EA`s servers even if I give my friend my IP address, or can I adequately set up a server of my own a la Quake? I`m concverned that if I recently have to briefly go through EA`s servers, then they could force us to ugprade to 2004 in a year.

slower when you are abruptly conected. Then you`ve a disconnect & you are in singlke-player & the meter is much faster.
But dont notice the players moving more slowly.
On PS2, when you do not have lag, it is just like single-player. Same speed, especialy the adequately kick meters on All-Madden.
At that time don`t know why it is different but the network performance on the PS2 is better then any I had in my 3-four years of PC Madden on line.