hmmn, I origionally posted this in another forum, but perhaps someone here could shed some light on whats going on
seems dunedin is more effected than others...

I have done some exaustive pinging for the 192.168.253.225 machine, which is the local dunedin ran (regional access node - telecoms hardware), and removed each reply and included the summary, for your convience.

Ping statistics for 192.168.253.225:
Packets: Sent = 30, Received = 30, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 57ms, Maximum = 132ms, Average = 63ms

Ping statistics for 192.168.253.225:
Packets: Sent = 30, Received = 30, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 57ms, Maximum = 116ms, Average = 63ms

Ping statistics for 192.168.253.225:
Packets: Sent = 30, Received = 30, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 57ms, Maximum = 100ms, Average = 60ms

Ping statistics for 192.168.253.225:
Packets: Sent = 30, Received = 30, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 57ms, Maximum = 123ms, Average = 64ms

Ping statistics for 192.168.253.225:
Packets: Sent = 30, Received = 30, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 57ms, Maximum = 136ms, Average = 63ms

Ping statistics for 192.168.253.225:
Packets: Sent = 30, Received = 30, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 58ms, Maximum = 94ms, Average = 60ms

Ping statistics for 192.168.253.225:
Packets: Sent = 30, Received = 30, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 57ms, Maximum = 113ms, Average = 64ms

Ping statistics for 192.168.253.225:
Packets: Sent = 30, Received = 30, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 57ms, Maximum = 123ms, Average = 65ms

as you can see, the average stays very close to the minimum, but the maximum is alot higher, on average 2-3 times bigger.

I have included one of the acutal pings here.

E:\Documents and Settings\shane>ing 192.168.253.225 -n 30

Pinging 192.168.253.225 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=58ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=59ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=60ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=57ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=60ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=58ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=59ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=58ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=59ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=60ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=70ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=92ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=58ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=60ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=59ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=122ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=92ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=59ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=58ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=59ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=57ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=58ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=123ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=58ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=58ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=58ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=59ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=59ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=58ms TTL=253
Reply from 192.168.253.225: bytes=32 time=60ms TTL=253

Ping statistics for 192.168.253.225:
Packets: Sent = 30, Received = 30, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 57ms, Maximum = 123ms, Average = 65ms

as you can see, there are frequent spikes.
seeing as this server is only 2 hops away from my external router
(below is the router's ping)

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.1:
Packets: Sent = 30, Received = 30, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 0ms

and the next hop is

Ping statistics for 210.86.52.254:
Packets: Sent = 30, Received = 30, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 57ms, Maximum = 70ms, Average = 59ms

which is what i would expect

the xtra dns servers pings are exactly the same

Ping statistics for 202.27.184.3:
Packets: Sent = 30, Received = 30, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 57ms, Maximum = 70ms, Average = 59ms

Ping statistics for 202.27.184.5:
Packets: Sent = 30, Received = 30, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 57ms, Maximum = 61ms, Average = 58ms

this isnt right.
The dude from xtra, in the middle of the auckland exchange, on frame relay with an average 0-2ms ping to most of xtra's services, was getting up to 500ms ping from his regional access node (ran)

He put me on hold, and talked to telecoms adsl department, when he came back, he told me that telecom where not willing to look into this problem, instead he blamed my physical connection to the exchange (which xtra confirmed to me was above average)

telcom have neither answered my emails about this, nor have tried to contact me at all

what to do?

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