I replied and told them to get bent:

Christian, Thank you for your "canned response". I can assure you that this is not an issue with my local computer, as I am running with the following specifications: * AMD Athlon 64 x2 @ 2.21GHz * 2GB PC800 DDR2 * 464GB total disk space with 28GB free on the main OS disk Additionally, the ABC.com streaming web server is likely no slouch; I suspect they use a large cluster of servers, utilizing load balancing techniques. As I stated, this drop in performance only started after the Insight to Comcast switchover. Before I provide you with the results of a trace to the site with which I was having issues, I would like to provide you with the result of tracing to the www.comcastsupport.com host at the time these issues were occurring: > C:\Documents and Settings\Tim>tracert www.comcastsupport.com > > Tracing route to www.comcastsupport.com [66.179.151.44] > over a maximum of 30 hops: > > 1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms gandm.gandm [192.168.1.1] > 2 * * * Request timed out. > 3 8 ms 14 ms 13 ms 68.85.178.193 > 4 11 ms 8 ms 7 ms 68.85.176.237 > 5 21 ms 21 ms 20 ms po-10-ar01.area4.il.chicago.comcast.net [68.87.229.110] > 6 36 ms 24 ms 26 ms te-3-1-ar01.chartford.ct.hartford.comcast.net [68.86.90.58] > 7 23 ms 23 ms 23 ms te-0-4-0-0-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.90.57] > 8 26 ms 4294967167 ms 23 ms xe-9-0-0.edge1.Chicago2.Level3.net [4.71.248.33] > 9 25 ms 33 ms 25 ms ae-2-56.bbr2.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.101.161] > 10 101 ms 52 ms 53 ms so-3-0-0.mp2.Philadelphia1.Level3.net [64.159.0.142] > 11 55 ms 57 ms 58 ms so-11-0.hsa1.Philadelphia1.Level3.net [64.159.0.154] > 12 52 ms 52 ms 53 ms SUNGARD-NET.hsa1.Philadelphia1.Level3.net [63.209.178.190] > 13 115 ms 148 ms 125 ms phlpr10-ge-0-1-0-0.sgns.net [216.83.181.49] > 14 54 ms 61 ms 59 ms 64.238.199.194 > 15 53 ms 54 ms 53 ms phlir3-vl-1.sgns.net [216.183.102.11] > 16 71 ms 52 ms 57 ms 69.48.228.4 > 17 54 ms 54 ms 66 ms 66.179.151.44 > > Trace complete. More recent traces to this domain are showing much lower ping times, though they are still quite erratic. Next, please see the result of tracing to another host which I was experiencng issues with, ns-vip3.hitbox.com. This is a marketing analysis service, which I presume to have been in use by the Comcast website, as I was not browsing any other sites when this host showed in my established connections via the netstat command: > C:\Documents and Settings\Tim>tracert ns-vip3.hitbox.com > > Tracing route to ns-vip3.hitbox.com [64.154.81.197] > over a maximum of 30 hops: > > 1 <1 ms 149 ms 149 ms gandm.gandm [192.168.1.1] > 2 * * * Request timed out. > 3 7 ms 16 ms 158 ms 68.85.178.193 > 4 165 ms 158 ms 161 ms 68.85.176.237 > 5 235 ms * 175 ms ge-1-3-ar01.mishawaka.in.sbend.comcast.net [68.87.230.234] > 6 173 ms 190 ms 172 ms te-3-1-ar01.chartford.ct.hartford.comcast.net [68.86.90.58] > 7 173 ms 177 ms 177 ms te-0-4-0-0-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.90.57] > 8 241 ms 26 ms 23 ms xe-10-1-0.edge1.Chicago2.Level3.net [4.71.248.17] > 9 174 ms 42 ms 27 ms ae-1-51.bbr1.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.101.1] > 10 258 ms 241 ms 243 ms as-0-0.mp2.SanDiego1.Level3.net [4.68.128.149] > 11 249 ms 253 ms 241 ms so-8-0.hsa2.SanDiego1.Level3.net [4.68.112.138] > 12 241 ms 240 ms 243 ms unknown.Level3.net [209.247.68.210] > 13 109 ms 241 ms 241 ms ns-vip3.hitbox.com [64.154.81.197] > > Trace complete. Next I will provide you with the results of a trace to the host which ABC provides their content from. This result was gathered directly after the video had "skipped" playing: > C:\Documents and Settings\Tim>tracert ll.static.abc.go.com > > Tracing route to wdig.vo.llnwd.net [208.111.168.50] > over a maximum of 30 hops: > > 1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms gandm.gandm [192.168.1.1] > 2 * * * Request timed out. > 3 7 ms 4294967156 ms 8 ms 68.85.178.193 > 4 7 ms 9 ms 6 ms 68.85.176.237 > 5 22 ms 24 ms 4294967160 ms po-10-ar01.area4.il.chicago.comcast.net [68.87.229.110] > 6 29 ms 26 ms 49 ms te-3-1-ar01.chartford.ct.hartford.comcast.net [68.86.90.58] > 7 46 ms 4294967165 ms 4294967163 ms te-0-4-0-0-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.90.57] > 8 27 ms 30 ms 25 ms TenGigabitEthernet2-2.ar5.CHI1.gblx.net [64.213.79.245] > 9 32 ms 34 ms 23 ms te4-2-10G.ar2.CHI2.gblx.net [67.17.106.134] > 10 33 ms 190 ms 25 ms 64.215.29.250 > 11 38 ms 37 ms 4294967165 ms cds439.ord.llnw.net [208.111.168.50] > > Trace complete. Given the traceroute results above, I don't see much sense in a ping, but I will allow you the result of pinging for 41 tries: > C:\Documents and Settings\Tim>ping -t ll.static.abc.go.com > > Pinging wdig.vo.llnwd.net [208.111.157.7] with 32 bytes of data: > > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=59ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=30ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=27ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=25ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=36ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=-130ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=185ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=105ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=84ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=85ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=235ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=-57ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=91ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=-117ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=57ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=184ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=59ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=184ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=75ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=52ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=71ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=44ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=183ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=189ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=195ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=187ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=34ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=55 > Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=55 > > Ping statistics for 208.111.157.7: > Packets: Sent = 41, Received = 41, Lost = 0 (0% loss), > Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: > Minimum = 23ms, Maximum = -57ms, Average = 62ms > Control-C > ^C Obviously there is some oddity here, as there are negative ping times. My only guess is that the Comcast hosts that reported the abnormally high pings in the traceroute are causing these same results. Please spend some more time looking into this issue, rather than sending me the standard "we are 95% sure this isn't our problem, so we'll have you check everything else" canned responses. The diagnostic results above clearly indicate there is a much different issue at play. If you need to escalate this to a higher level technician, then please do so. Thank you, -Tim Garrison