Intermittent latency issues?

Is anyone else experiencing intermittent latency issues? One minut things are normal, then everything grinds to a halt and I'm seeing:

Pinging google.com [74.125.230.144] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 74.125.230.144: bytes=32 time=1701ms TTL=58
Reply from 74.125.230.144: bytes=32 time=1682ms TTL=58
Reply from 74.125.230.144: bytes=32 time=1127ms TTL=58
Reply from 74.125.230.144: bytes=32 time=882ms TTL=58

Ping statistics for 74.125.230.144:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 882ms, Maximum = 1701ms, Average = 1348ms

Same to other sites too. Did the usual, rebooted router and PC, but no change. It sorts itself out after a while, then comes back again.

Is it just me?
AP

Can you post the results of a traceroute please?

Also, can you run a speedtest, and post the results for that.

The issue seems to have gone away again, but the second hop is the issue. My router responds in less that a millisecond as expected, but the next hop to losubs.subs.dsl1.kp-leeds.zen.net.uk can be up to a second and a half!

BT's speedtester gives me these results:

Download speedachieved during the test was - 3239 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 600-7150 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :7616 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 6500 Kbps

Not great - but then Zen really seems to be slipping on speed, for me at least.

The low speeds is most likely exchange contention. You can completely* rule out Zen by running the BT speedtest when logged in to the BT speedtest domain username. Highly likely the results would be the same, indicating exchange contention rather than Zen's network.

Regarding the latency - If I was you, what I would do tomorrow, when you see the issue again, disconnect all clients from the internet and run a tracert - ensure that your connection is not being used at all (to prove this is a fault rather than the fact it is being caused by your upload/download is maxed out), then phone Zen up and raise it as a fault.

In the meantime perhaps consider setting up a thinkbroadband monitor account or F8lure to give you a graph of pings to your connection over the course of the day

What/how do I log into the BT domain username? That sounds like a really useful test.

Cheers,
AP

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/btwspeedtest.htm

In reply to a post by AndyPandy:

Is anyone else experiencing intermittent latency issues? One minut things are normal, then everything grinds to a halt

If it's of help I've seen seeing intermittent issues on two Zen connections I monitor - one in Watford and one in Rochester - since 1200 today. Touch wood all OK again since 1930.

It being a BH, didn't seem worth pursuing further, but my guess is *something* amiss with Zen's network, as the other (non Zen) connections monitored by the same server have been fine.