Ping Question

[Bishoop]

I'm trying to convince my ISP that I have a download problem.

I'm using PingPlotter to gather data. When my download speeds seem normal
the ping times being recorded are in the area of 40~60ms. During periods
that I believe to be abnormal the ping times are up in the 0.5~1.5 second
range. I'm pinging the first machine after my ISP's which is the second hop
from my machine. The target machine belongs to Sprint.

If I ping some machine several hops removed from this Sprint machine, the
large variation in ping times is always associated with the hop between the
ISP's last machine and the Sprint machine.

Ping times from my machine to the ISP's machine are always <1ms.

If I'm downloading something in the background I will get frequent ping
timeouts. Is this to be expected while coincidently downloading and running
PingPlotter?

This is an "unconventional" cable system. Our community is wired so all
homes are on a 10Mb LAN. The Internet data and analog TV signal are piped
through this single cable. I have no cable modem just a NIC to their
interface in our home. As I understand this interface it is simply a filter
used to keep the TV signals out of the PC. This LAN at the cable system head
end is connected to the Internet.

Any comments are appreciated.