Ping plotter, advice please Options

[Bargod]

So, I've got some guys from the cable company coming over this afternoon, the result of my call about high ping since changing from Comcast to Time Warner. I ran ping plotter last nite and see that I'm getting lots of packet loss in steps 2, 3, and 4, mostly. At time up to 60%, but there is always some. Currently it's 15% in step 2, 15% in step 3 and 50% in step 4. These are all my local cable company.
How should I go about explaining this to the guys and not get the run around like I did form the IT guy when I called earlier in the week? I know just enough about this stuff to be dangerous.
Thanks in advance.

Here are some samples:

Target Name: N/A
IP: 8.9.4.77
Date/Time: 3/2/2007 12:02:39 PM to 3/2/2007 12:02:58 PM

Hop Sent Err PL% Min Max Avg Host Name / [IP]
1 20 0 0.0 7 28 10 cpe-76-184-16-1.tx.res.rr.com [76.184.16.1]
2 20 1 5.0 7 10 7 [70.125.216.17]
3 19 4 21.1 7 24 9 [70.125.217.8]
4 20 7 35.0 7 23 10 gig2-0-0.dllatxl3-rtr1.texas.rr.com [24.93.37.97]
5 9 0 0.0 13 14 13 gig2-2-0.hstqtxl3-rtr1.texas.rr.com [72.179.205.14]
6 9 0 0.0 13 22 15 te-2-4.car1.Houston1.Level3.net [4.79.88.25]
7 20 0 0.0 14 197 39 ae-11-11.car2.Houston1.Level3.net [4.69.132.234]
8 20 0 0.0 50 69 56 ae-5-5.ebr1.Atlanta2.Level3.net [4.69.132.238]
9 20 0 0.0 50 80 57 ae-1-100.ebr2.Atlanta2.Level3.net [4.69.132.34]
10 20 0 0.0 69 84 74 ae-3.ebr2.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.69.132.73]
11 20 0 0.0 69 192 83 ae-24-56.car4.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.101.168]
12 20 0 0.0 69 85 71 [4.79.66.146]
13 20 0 0.0 69 87 72 [8.9.4.77]

Target Name: N/A
IP: 8.9.4.77
Date/Time: 3/2/2007 12:04:24 PM to 3/2/2007 12:04:43 PM

Hop Sent Err PL% Min Max Avg Host Name / [IP]
1 20 0 0.0 7 12 8 cpe-76-184-16-1.tx.res.rr.com [76.184.16.1]
2 20 0 0.0 7 11 7 [70.125.216.17]
3 20 8 40.0 7 60 12 [70.125.217.8]
4 20 4 20.0 7 26 10 gig2-0-0.dllatxl3-rtr1.texas.rr.com [24.93.37.97]
5 9 0 0.0 13 75 20 gig2-2-0.hstqtxl3-rtr1.texas.rr.com [72.179.205.14]
6 8 0 0.0 13 17 14 te-2-3.car1.Houston1.Level3.net [4.79.88.29]
7 20 0 0.0 13 20 14 ae-11-11.car2.Houston1.Level3.net [4.69.132.234]
8 20 0 0.0 50 65 55 ae-5-5.ebr1.Atlanta2.Level3.net [4.69.132.238]
9 20 0 0.0 50 92 57 ae-1-100.ebr2.Atlanta2.Level3.net [4.69.132.34]
10 20 0 0.0 70 100 77 ae-3.ebr2.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.69.132.73]
11 20 0 0.0 70 73 70 ae-24-56.car4.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.101.168]
12 20 0 0.0 70 88 72 [4.79.66.146]
13 20 0 0.0 69 88 71 [8.9.4.77]

Target Name: N/A
IP: 8.9.4.77
Date/Time: 3/2/2007 12:05:05 PM to 3/2/2007 12:05:24 PM

Hop Sent Err PL% Min Max Avg Host Name / [IP]
1 20 0 0.0 7 26 9 cpe-76-184-16-1.tx.res.rr.com [76.184.16.1]
2 20 0 0.0 7 10 7 [70.125.216.17]
3 20 4 20.0 7 12 8 [70.125.217.8]
4 20 9 45.0 7 11 8 gig2-0-0.dllatxl3-rtr1.texas.rr.com [24.93.37.97]
5 11 0 0.0 14 19 15 gig2-2-0.hstqtxl3-rtr1.texas.rr.com [72.179.205.14]
6 8 0 0.0 13 116 46 [4.79.88.21]
7 20 0 0.0 13 196 47 ae-11-11.car2.Houston1.Level3.net [4.69.132.234]
8 20 0 0.0 50 72 58 ae-5-5.ebr1.Atlanta2.Level3.net [4.69.132.238]
9 20 0 0.0 51 73 58 ae-1-100.ebr2.Atlanta2.Level3.net [4.69.132.34]
10 20 0 0.0 70 84 75 ae-3.ebr2.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.69.132.73]
11 20 0 0.0 70 76 71 ae-24-56.car4.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.101.168]
12 20 0 0.0 70 92 73 [4.79.66.146]
13 20 0 0.0 69 73 70 [8.9.4.77]

[steel]

Bargod,
I think that unless that hop's packet loss is steady, that every ping returns >50% packet loss, then it's probably normal loss and not a problem. If it is steady packet loss, then it is a problem, but not at your house, and I doubt your local techs can bump it up high enough to get you any satisfaction - you might want to send your pingplot to their corporate offices or something like that.

I didn't see anything in your pingplots to indicate that your cable modem or your home connection are/were having any troubles. And ha, if squirrels were munching on your cable line, you'd have a lot worse problem than bad ping to gameservers, lol. Plus, you'd have a ratty TV picture too. Matter of fact, if squirrels bit through a fiber-optic line, you'd get absolutely no reception of any kind.

In your last pingplot, to 8.9.4.80, your high ping is due to the Atlanta and Chicago hops. But overall, 70-71 is not a bad ping at all, from Texas to a Chicago server.

Here's something to look at. Run your pingplotter to our server and see what it is (your pingplotter results changes throughout the day, so you'll want a fresh run to compare). Let's say you get 70-71 again. Now, go straight into the game and to that same server you just pinged, and look at your ping. If it's around 80, then that's just about right, cause the game itself will add some overhead to your ping. If it's really far off from the pingplot number, then you may want to do some tweaking to your computer (like run TZ Connection Booster) or the game itself (but I'm sure you've already done all that maxpacket, etc, tweaks, yes?).

Good luck with it. I get pretty lousy pings and lots of stuttering to the server from here in Austin, due to congestion in the same hubs you are showing in your graphs.