High ping and slow speeds

I'm on AOL LLU, which uses TalkTalk LLU equipment (as I understand it).

I'm getting fairly erratic speeds and also high pings, which I think are related. This has been happening for most of today, although I have known it to happen sporadically in the past.

Here are a few traceroutes as examples. Is this a local problem (i.e. something wrong with my equipment or in the exchange)? Am I right in thinking it's something wrong elsewhere, because the slow ping doesn't occur until several 'hops' down? Strangely, bbc.co.uk seems to be OK (see third example below).

Tracing route to google.co.uk [173.194.78.94]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 91 ms 12 ms 13 ms host-92-15-192-1.as43234.net [92.15.192.1]
3 16 ms 15 ms 15 ms host-92-31-247-83.as13285.net [92.31.247.83]
4 16 ms 15 ms 15 ms host-92-31-247-82.as13285.net [92.31.247.82]
5 118 ms 114 ms 115 ms xe-9-3-0-scr001.log.as13285.net [78.144.2.133]
6 116 ms 116 ms 115 ms host-78-144-0-174.as13285.net [78.144.0.174]
7 115 ms 115 ms 115 ms 72.14.214.224
8 17 ms 17 ms 17 ms 209.85.252.188
9 117 ms 116 ms 127 ms 209.85.253.196
10 23 ms 121 ms 22 ms 72.14.232.134
11 121 ms 121 ms 120 ms 216.239.49.45
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 122 ms 120 ms 120 ms wg-in-f94.1e100.net [173.194.78.94]

Trace complete.


Tracing route to yahoo.com [209.191.122.70]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 14 ms 12 ms 13 ms host-92-15-192-1.as43234.net [92.15.192.1]
3 15 ms 14 ms 14 ms host-92-31-247-83.as13285.net [92.31.247.83]
4 16 ms 15 ms 15 ms host-92-31-247-98.as13285.net [92.31.247.98]
5 120 ms 115 ms 114 ms xe-11-2-0-scr002.log.as13285.net [78.144.2.131]

6 115 ms 115 ms 115 ms xe-11-0-0-scr010.thn.as13285.net [78.144.1.0]
7 * 116 ms 116 ms ge-3-3-0.pat1.tc2.yahoo.com [195.66.226.129]
8 116 ms 17 ms 116 ms ge-0-1-0.pat1.the.yahoo.com [66.196.65.28]
9 189 ms 188 ms 215 ms UNKNOWN-216-115-96-X.yahoo.com [216.115.96.30]
10 201 ms 216 ms 201 ms ae-1-d190.pat2.dax.yahoo.com [216.115.104.120]
11 234 ms 231 ms 312 ms ae-6.pat2.dax.yahoo.com [216.115.96.21]
12 242 ms 232 ms 240 ms ae-2-d100.msr1.mud.yahoo.com [216.115.104.105]
13 143 ms 136 ms 136 ms te-7-2.fab1-a-gdc.mud.yahoo.com [209.191.78.147]

14 144 ms 143 ms 140 ms te-8-2.bas-c1.mud.yahoo.com [209.191.78.173]
15 240 ms 239 ms 233 ms ir1.fp.vip.mud.yahoo.com [209.191.122.70]

Trace complete.


Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.241.131]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms host-92-15-192-1.as43234.net [92.15.192.1]
3 15 ms 14 ms 15 ms host-92-31-247-83.as13285.net [92.31.247.83]
4 16 ms 16 ms 16 ms host-92-31-247-106.as13285.net [92.31.247.106]
5 19 ms 17 ms 19 ms xe-10-2-0-scr001.log.as13285.net [78.144.2.1]
6 19 ms 18 ms 17 ms host-78-144-0-137.as13285.net [78.144.0.137]
7 18 ms 17 ms 17 ms bbc-pp-sov.as13285.net [78.144.5.1]
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 117 ms 120 ms 17 ms ae1.er01.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.46]
10 19 ms 17 ms 17 ms 132.185.255.134
11 17 ms 16 ms 17 ms 212.58.241.131

Trace complete.

Edited by deleted (Fri 30-Mar-12 17:57:14)

Looks more like a network issue, rather than ADSL/telephone line/exchange issue

It sorted itself out by about 8pm last night. I'm not sure what causes it to happen, but I guess it might be related to congestion. At least it doesn't happen too often (touch wood) and when it does, it's likely to be a network problem and not just affecting me. Thanks!