There is no point ringing them - you just end up having a conversation with someone sitting in a call centre , who seems to just be reading from a script. And seems to have little understanding of how to troubleshoot a problem .
So this is our problem this evening
~$ ping -c 10 www.google.com
PING www.google.com (173.194.67.147) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from wi-in-f147.1e100.net (173.194.67.147): icmp_req=1 ttl=47 time=1323 ms
64 bytes from wi-in-f147.1e100.net (173.194.67.147): icmp_req=2 ttl=47 time=1499 ms
64 bytes from wi-in-f147.1e100.net (173.194.67.147): icmp_req=3 ttl=47 time=1089 ms
64 bytes from wi-in-f147.1e100.net (173.194.67.147): icmp_req=4 ttl=47 time=1193 ms
64 bytes from wi-in-f147.1e100.net (173.194.67.147): icmp_req=5 ttl=47 time=1371 ms
64 bytes from wi-in-f147.1e100.net (173.194.67.147): icmp_req=6 ttl=47 time=1429 ms
64 bytes from wi-in-f147.1e100.net (173.194.67.147): icmp_req=7 ttl=47 time=1367 ms
64 bytes from wi-in-f147.1e100.net (173.194.67.147): icmp_req=8 ttl=47 time=1252 ms
64 bytes from wi-in-f147.1e100.net (173.194.67.147): icmp_req=9 ttl=47 time=1496 ms
64 bytes from wi-in-f147.1e100.net (173.194.67.147): icmp_req=10 ttl=47 time=1486 ms
this is on a wired connection and the router is OK
$ ping -c 4 192.168.2.1
PING 192.168.2.1 (192.168.2.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.2.1: icmp_req=1 ttl=64 time=0.255 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.1: icmp_req=2 ttl=64 time=0.229 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.1: icmp_req=3 ttl=64 time=0.227 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.1: icmp_req=4 ttl=64 time=0.233 ms
--- 192.168.2.1 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 2997ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.227/
and then there is this
$ traceroute www.google.comSo the problem seems to be 'out there'
traceroute to www.google.com (74.125.132.147), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 192.168.2.1 (192.168.2.1) 0.218 ms 0.224 ms 0.267 ms
2 * * *
3 gate-core-2b-ae10-722.network.virginmedia.net (80.0.145.225) 1465.281 ms 1469.270 ms 1469.262 ms
4 manc-bb-1c-ae10-0.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.159.169) 1476.920 ms 1490.733 ms 1490.724 ms
5 manc-bb-1b-ae6-0.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.159.89) 1509.384 ms 1484.456 ms 1491.203 ms
6 tele-ic-3-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net (212.43.163.70) 1490.964 ms 1371.411 ms 1371.430 ms
7 162-14-250-212.static.virginmedia.com (212.250.14.162) 1377.432 ms 1423.079 ms 1423.177 ms
8 209.85.240.63 (209.85.240.63) 1379.349 ms 209.85.240.61 (209.85.240.61) 1383.191 ms 209.85.240.63 (209.85.240.63) 1384.781 ms
9 209.85.253.196 (209.85.253.196) 1430.788 ms 209.85.253.90 (209.85.253.90) 1430.983 ms 1430.890 ms
10 72.14.232.134 (72.14.232.134) 1392.536 ms 1396.961 ms 66.249.95.173 (66.249.95.173) 1396.330 ms
11 216.239.49.45 (216.239.49.45) 1398.300 ms 209.85.252.83 (209.85.252.83) 1731.120 ms 72.14.236.191 (72.14.236.191) 1460.492 ms
12 * * *
13 wb-in-f147.1e100.net (74.125.132.147) 1465.257 ms 1464.891 ms 1465.134 ms
I'll find out if anyone else in the area is having similar problems
