Look at your first hop pings....10.87.16.1

Download a copy of WinMTR and run that against the quakelive.com address and see what that shows

nothing unusual for VM.

Place bets on over-utilisation! Best thing to do is post on the virginmedia support forum and see if they can escalate - if it is congestion.
I wouldnt hold your breathe on a fix date though they seem to change with the wind

during a period when the issue was present:

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| WinMTR statistics |
| Host - % | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|
| 10.87.16.1 - 13 | 65 | 57 | 7 | 253 | 629 | 37 |
|oldh-cam-1a-v103.network.virginmedia.net - 45 | 36 | 20 | 0 | 89 | 326 | 11 |
|manc-core-1a-ae1-0.network.virginmedia.net - 80 | 24 | 5 | 0 | 208 | 249 | 125 |
|manc-bb-1a-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net - 80 | 24 | 5 | 0 | 229 | 274 | 255 |
|manc-bb-1b-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net - 80 | 24 | 5 | 0 | 194 | 281 | 98 |
| tele-ic-3-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net - 80 | 24 | 5 | 0 | 173 | 282 | 282 |
| 45-236-228-213.packetexchange.net - 83 | 23 | 4 | 0 | 243 | 274 | 274 |
| be-11-cr01.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.net - 95 | 20 | 1 | 0 | 264 | 264 | 264 |
|pos-0-0-0-0-pe01.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.net - 87 | 22 | 3 | 0 | 224 | 241 | 208 |
| No response from host - 100 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
|50.23.229.123-static.reverse.softlayer.com - 0 | 97 | 97 | 127 | 329 | 763 | 131 |
|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|
WinMTR v0.92 GPL V2 by Appnor MSP - Fully Managed Hosting & Cloud Provider

Edited by deleted (Sun 30-Oct-11 10:47:39)

and a period when it was not:

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| WinMTR statistics |
| Host - % | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|
| 10.87.16.1 - 14 | 61 | 53 | 5 | 40 | 227 | 10 |
|oldh-cam-1a-v103.network.virginmedia.net - 45 | 34 | 19 | 0 | 48 | 235 | 17 |
|manc-core-1a-ae1-0.network.virginmedia.net - 79 | 23 | 5 | 0 | 30 | 73 | 10 |
|manc-bb-1a-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net - 52 | 31 | 15 | 0 | 61 | 332 | 26 |
|manc-bb-1b-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net - 63 | 27 | 10 | 0 | 58 | 228 | 22 |
| No response from host - 100 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| po1.fcr01.sr01.dal05.networklayer.com - 95 | 19 | 1 | 0 | 366 | 366 | 366 |
|50.23.229.123-static.reverse.softlayer.com - 0 | 94 | 94 | 126 | 154 | 355 | 135 |
|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|
WinMTR v0.92 GPL V2 by Appnor MSP - Fully Managed Hosting & Cloud Provider

The worst part of this is that joining a game frequently seems to TRIGGER the issue. I have a ping monitor on my IRC client, and it often idles at 16-25ms to QuakeNet. I join a game and it immediately hits 100-200ms, sometimes more. Leave the game and it drops back to normal.

This isn't always the case, sometimes I'll see ping spikes without my doing anything at all, and sometimes (rarely these days) I can play a game with no problem. It just happens too often for it to be a coincidence.