Very high ping times and lots of packet loss. Any recourse?

Factual Questions
1

Pretty much ever since I’ve had Comcast Cable Modem service, I’ve been getting really high ping times with high amounts of packet loss. Here’s the background:

[ul]
[li]I use a router, but I know that it does not affect ping times or packet loss, as even without the router these problems persist[/li][li]This narrows the problem down to either the cable modem, the connection between the cable modem and the wall, the connection from the apartment to a Comcast gateway/router, or the Comcast gateway/router itself.[/li][li]I sent numerous emails to their technical support staff. One person seemed sincere in trying to help me out, and he said that they did some diagnostic test which confirmed that my cable modem and connection were both fine. So, I sent him some copies of traceroutes. However, this only resulted in a new “technician” giving me the runaround and telling me to call 1-800-COMCAST for tech. support.[/li][/ul]

Anyway, I can’t call 1-800-COMCAST, as I am on cell phone service and I don’t want to waste all of my daytime minutes waiting on hold for hours on end. Here is a copy of a traceroute I performed recently, which pretty clearly shows that one of Comcast’s routers is screwed up:

Tracing route to yahoo.com [64.58.79.230]
over a maximum of 30 hops:


 1   <10 ms   <10 ms    10 ms  192.168.0.1
  2   260 ms   251 ms    90 ms  10.56.96.1
  3     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  4     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  5     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  6     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  7   481 ms   291 ms   230 ms  68.42.244.182
  8   140 ms    30 ms    30 ms  12.124.15.61
  9   341 ms   451 ms   300 ms  gbr2-p70.dtrmi.ip.att.net [12.123.139.26]
 10   371 ms   280 ms   120 ms  tbr2-p013002.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.122.10.113]
 11    60 ms    80 ms    30 ms  ggr2-p390.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.123.6.37]
 12   330 ms   321 ms   210 ms  dcr1-so-3-3-0.Chicago.cw.net [208.175.10.93]
 13   451 ms   100 ms   340 ms  dcr1-loopback.Washington.cw.net [206.24.226.99]

 14   230 ms   330 ms   221 ms  bhr1-pos-0-0.Sterling1dc2.cw.net [206.24.238.34]

 15   390 ms   411 ms   390 ms  csr11-ve241.Sterling2dc3.cw.net [216.109.66.90]

 16   310 ms   290 ms   311 ms  216.109.84.162
 17   371 ms   340 ms   341 ms  vl43.bas1.dcx.yahoo.com [216.109.120.190]
 18   480 ms   331 ms   170 ms  w1.rc.vip.dcx.yahoo.com [64.58.79.230]

Trace complete.

If their router is indeed screwed up, is there any action I can take short of switching ISPs? Can I somehow try to get connected through a different gateway/router? Do you think that Comcast will somehow allow me to circumvent their awful router and get onto a, like, working one? Do you think any of this can be accomplished by calling 1-800-COMCAST, blowing all my cell phone minutes, and giving them an earful of not-so-righteous indignation?

Thanks.

2

I find it much more likely that the problem is between your cable modem and their router, and not with their router itself. If the problem was with their router, then your entire subnet would be effected. Also, sometimes (well, often) routers are configured to treat ping responses as low-priority traffic, which leads to inconclusive tracert results.

When debugging, get your router out of there and direct-connect to the cable modem. If you haven’t already, shut down your computer, turn off the cable modem, remove the cable, count to 10, plug the modem back in, turn it on, wait for all the lights to light up, then turn on the PC.

Then ping the router directly, noticing any dropped packets or whatnot (if you get no response, then the router is quite probably ignoring ping requests). Test a sustained ping against every stop in your chain.

Then you gotta call, and keep calling until you get somebody on the line who can help you. Alternately, you can try
this forum for a more specific answer.

-lv