But it looks like the traffic is "well into" squareenix before it hits trouble?

As I said it looks to me anyway that the issue is within squares network sending the traffic back, I'm not sure how you are expecting BT to resolve that for you if indeed the issue is within a customer network in a different country

Can you get a sample trace from another ISP that works it is probably taking a totally different path

Without knowing more details which I'm afraid you won't be able to get its hard to pin point the problem really.

I could be a routing issue within Squares network
I could be a routing issue within asianets network
I could be a routing issue within BT's network

As suggested I would go for the BT forum/mod angle to get a more personalized response

Due to the nature of the way the internet is built I don't think its any one ISP's responsibility to get your data there (re what you pay for) keep trying tho via forum/mod

Here's a trace from my Zen connection at about 2.20PM for comparison.

Tracing route to 202.67.50.142 over a maximum of 30 hops.
1       2 ms    2 ms    2 ms    192.168.0.1     [home.gateway.home.gateway]
2       20 ms   20 ms   22 ms   62.3.83.10      [losubs.subs.dsl5.wh-man.zen.net.uk]
3       22 ms   20 ms   20 ms   62.3.86.29      [no-dns-yet-62-3-86-29.zen.co.uk]
4       19 ms   21 ms   47 ms   62.3.80.49      [ge-2-0-0-0.cr1.wh-man.zen.net.uk]
5       27 ms   39 ms   29 ms   62.3.80.45      [ge-3-0-0-0.cr2.th-lon.zen.net.uk]
6       28 ms   28 ms   28 ms   195.66.224.21   [40gigabitethernet1-1.core1.lon1.he.net]
7       96 ms   106 ms  96 ms   72.52.92.241    [10gigabitethernet10-4.core1.nyc4.he.net]
8       157 ms  159 ms  155 ms  72.52.92.226    [10gigabitethernet10-3.core1.lax1.he.net]
9       166 ms  164 ms  164 ms  216.218.223.206 [pacnet.10gigabitethernet2-3.core1.lax1.he.net]
10      264 ms  278 ms  262 ms  202.147.0.52    [ip-202-147-0-52.asianetcom.net]
11      274 ms  276 ms  278 ms  202.147.0.178   [gi1-0-0.gw1.nrt5.asianetcom.net]
12      310 ms  279 ms  277 ms  203.192.149.210 [squareco.asianetcom.net]
13      278 ms  278 ms  278 ms  61.195.56.129
14      278 ms  276 ms  317 ms  219.117.144.70
15      282 ms  282 ms  276 ms  219.117.144.57
16      281 ms  277 ms  279 ms  219.117.146.141
17      279 ms  283 ms  281 ms  219.117.146.26
18      280 ms  278 ms  280 ms  202.67.50.134
19      Destination Reached in 279 ms. Connection established to 202.67.50.142.
Trace Complete.

Just guessing, but it does seem from your trace that there is some sort of congestion on asianetcom.net. Are the packets still lost when you ping squareco.asianetcom.net (during the slow period) with a long time out, e.g.

ping -w 60000 squareco.asianetcom.net

which waits 60 seconds for a reply.

In reply to a post by GMAN98:

But it looks like the traffic is "well into" squareenix before it hits trouble?

starts at hop 11 the first hop outside of BTs network. Hardly well into,

Well, here's one from Sky, I cut it short due to boredom:

Tracing route to 202.67.50.142 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms SkyRouter.Home [192.168.1.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 27 ms 29 ms 31 ms ip-84-38-37-40.easynet.co.uk [84.38.37.40]
4 28 ms 27 ms 28 ms ae-1.r00.londen01.uk.bb.gin.ntt.net [83.231.199. 161]
5 303 ms 303 ms 302 ms ae-6.r02.londen03.uk.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.2 ]
6 26 ms 26 ms 25 ms ae-4.r23.londen03.uk.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.5.4 0]
7 291 ms 290 ms 293 ms as-0.r22.osakjp01.jp.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.5.3 5]
8 300 ms 305 ms 302 ms ae-7.r24.tokyjp05.jp.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.2 21]
9 300 ms 299 ms 300 ms ae-4.a20.tokyjp01.jp.ra.gin.ntt.net [61.213.162. 162]
10 302 ms 305 ms 302 ms ge-2-2-1.a20.tokyjp01.jp.ra.gin.ntt.net [61.120. 146.94]
11 329 ms 303 ms 301 ms 219.117.144.70
12 300 ms 299 ms 299 ms 219.117.144.57
13 300 ms 302 ms 300 ms 219.117.146.141
14 322 ms 301 ms 305 ms 219.117.146.26
15 301 ms 299 ms 300 ms 202.67.50.134
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * *

It was all over the place on for me on BT yesterday, with 75% packet loss. Looks completely stable 300ms ping now, with jitter of only a few ms.

Edited by StephenTodd (Fri 15-Nov-13 15:46:11)