Games are difficult, especially when it seems some other players aren't seeing the same problem.  Have you got a ping graph running from TBB?   They are useful for seeing what's going on with your line.  The fact that disabling your windows firewall helps a bit suggests that it may be interfering somewhat, but it suggests it's not all of the problem.
Do your speed tests run quicker/without the delay without zone alarm?   I'm not sure how good Zone Alarm is anymore tbh.  I used to use it a long time ago, but now just us the Windows firewall.

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Aside from that I had a large reduction in line speed last night for download, dropping 4-5Mb/s for about half an hour, and for most of the evening upload reduced - floating around 500-800kb/s. Generally, however, my line speed (down) is ... reasonable

I think we had a separate issue last night (a remaining thing to fix from the issues we thought we'd fixed on Friday night) so I don't think this is related.
This thread: http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/640370-Assassin-s-Creed-Brotherhood-PC-Connection-issues which although is an old one, suggests their game servers had had problems before in the past.   This ip 216.98.51.138 in your log is assocated also with a problem thread: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1190927.  Not AC, but it could be that device hosts multiple servers.
Extreme outside one: http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Home-Broadband-Home-Phone/Low-speeds-Constant-disconnection-from-intern...   This guy has the same firewall errors.   Their guys were suggesting he actually had a fault.  We should get your router stats to make sure all is ok there.   Some of the other people on the forums will be able to help with that.

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I got so fed up with this last night that I dared to enable ping on wan on my router

I'd leave that up so you can run a TBB graph.
The packet sig will be with Dave in my team, but he;s been completely snowed the past couple of days with the aforementioned problems.  He'll take a look tomorrow/tuesday.

Hi Kelly,
I must say thank you for your continued attention and efforts. I really do appreciate it, despite my extreme ire with the problems I'm experiencing.
Yes, games are difficult with such variety in individual user experiences. I've always marvelled with any game I've played at how some get on fine and others have a hell of a time, whether that be online stuff or just getting the damn thing to run. This one is getting to me so much because I've always been able to fix any issues I've had with any game, but then, this is the first time I'm playing an online multiplayer game and it's involving things I feel are out of my control [connection and server matters] (probably partly accounting for much of my anger with it), and which are largely beyond my computer knowledge (so I just feel lost in confusion) - me no likey. Anyway ...
No, I don't have a ping graph running with TBB. I don't even know what that is, but would guess at Think Broadband piece of software that I have to have running all the time so it can monitor ping. I've noticed a TBB graph thread but never read it, will do shortly and find out if my guess is right. On the note of ping, whenever I do speed tests it is invariably (I believe a very good) 10. Sometimes it is 26. On the odd occasion it is diabolical, but this is really quite rare. Disabling my router firewall makes no difference to my ping on the speed tests I do, only that I get less error messages (destination unreachable) in the firewall log. I am not sure, however, if these are ping. I'm only guessing they are because they are called ICMP errors, which I think is ping, but could be completely wrong. Neither does enabling ping in my router make any difference to my ping on speed tests.

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The fact that disabling your windows firewall helps a bit suggests that it may be interfering somewhat

And evidently continues to interfere despite being disabled. The router logs I look at attest to that, because I still get some errors when I shouldn't. Makes me think the router is not disabling the firewall properly.
As to ZA. No, my speed tests don't run more quickly when it's disabled. On the whole they have been just the same, with the exception that the slower upload speeds I have seen lately have been since disabling ZA (maybe coincidental). The upload delay has always been present since getting my service with PN. The delay at the end of the speed test has always been present too, but has got worse since disabling ZA (again, maybe coincidental). Yesterday they were ok at ending, but that weirdness was back again today.
No, I'm not entirely happy with how ZA has gone since it's earliest days (used to be great), but when checkpoint took over it's steadily got worse and worse (like when symantec buy good software and destroy it) and now I see it interfering with other programs, and often completely forgetting rules you set it to remember. That said, I can't get an alternative I'm happy with. I very reluctantly tried Comodo again recently, reluctant because I know how unnecessarily complex it is, and how it just automatically allows everything on your system to have access to the internet as the default setting (pfft). I felt forced at the time because ZA just kept stalling my bit torrent client. I regret trying Comodo again because it completely screwed up my system (thank heavens for disc sector backups). I won't use the windows firewall because it offers no outbound protection/control. Pointless, in my view.
I've already read that Ubi thread, that's how I came to their 'make no sense' "support" that so many other people have tried and find it 'makes no difference'. So anyway, yeah, I know there have been problems with the servers in the past, as I know there have been for a lot of other games from other companies with their servers, even when I wasn't playing online games. I have gathered in the past that such problems are par for the course. Having this awareness, I was thinking that some of the time problems could be ubi's servers. I can't rely on that, however, because most of the other logs on my router show Firewall ICMP destination unreachable for inbound. Maybe I'm monumentally thick, but I'm sure that means my disabled router firewall is blocking connections to me from ubi's servers and other gamers in the sessions. No, really, maybe I AM monumentally thick and have this all wrong. I'm looking at logs that I really don't know what they mean and can only guess and try to understand. If I do have it wrong, please do tell me.
That other thread with the ip address is, if short, interesting for the post that mentions it. Seems there may still be a "dead router out there or a bad dns forwarding issue or something..." nearly three years down the line! I had to laugh at the several times during my searches at the avalanche of "why are ubisoft's servers so shit?" results I've seen. But then, one of them was me searching on "why are ubisoft's servers so shit?".
Regarding the third thread you link to and my router stats. I'm guessing I should in fact open another thread in the router section for that, then. ...
OK about that packet thing with Dave. Thanks.

Yeah, start a thread in bb and routers and get your stats on to there.  The guys should be able to help you work out if all is well.  (the delays in uploads etc suggests something to me)
This is the TBB tool: http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping
You don't need to download anything.

Done that. Thanks, Kelly.
TBB. I looked at the thread on forum. I don't have a static IP address, so can't use the monitoring.

Having seen your other thread and no obvious problems with your stats - have you tried this which seems to help some people

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Finally I have the answer and solved my problem. You have to login to your router and change the dmz configs. First activate the firewall and delete all the ports. Then activate dmz and write your IP under "client ip adress".

Of course with a dynamic Ip you would need to change it every time your router loses its PPP connection

Thank you for that, Jim. No, I haven't tried that. I'll give it a go, it's worth a try. Does this mean that I can keep the router firewall running if it works?
EDIT:
Forgot to say, heard back from Dave Re: Wireshark. Game is prioritised correctly. Thank you again for that, Dave.
EDIT 2:
Oh, bugger. How do I delete all the ports on my router firewall?

Since I use a decent router I can't help with the last one  but this may http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/hardware/technicolor-582n-advanced.shtml

Ha.
I can't find anything in those scanty guides, Jim, but thanks anyway. Doing a quick google of DMZ it seems to me that configuring it with my IP address is basically opening all of my ports. I'd be, in essence, asking to be bent over. Worse than not running my firewall (I don't know why the advisor says to start the firewall if I'd be opening all ports).
I think I'm going to have to end up setting up a third OS partition completely unconnected to any of my drives and partitions and without any security running at all to get this thing running smoothly and reliably. One that I'll probably have to re-instate the subsequent sector backup of on a weekly basis, just in case some snotty, little h4XX0r aged 12 has invaded it so he can launch attacks on the Pentagon, or something. Don't fancy ending up in an American prison; I wouldn't have to ask to be bent over in there ... I'd be made to. And all just for a game of AC:B multiplayer.
(Hope you're enjoying AC3, by the way. I watched it played through on youtube a week or two ago. I don't think I'll be buying it.)

Tried it and I won't be bothering - rubbish game play
Just replaying Crysis 2 on ultra high quality DX11 with the 64 bit patch- the new graphics card seems to be coping

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don't make sense to me either. It's news to me that ports can be opened in a firewall. I certainly can't find any such option in mine. Aside from that, I can't seem to only open ports in my router for a specific exe.

You can telnet to your router and enter the following command to open the ports:
:connection bind application=CONE(UDP) port=44301
:connection bind application=CONE(UDP) port=45301

Ok, thanks for that. I can give it a try, but should it not be the case that if I am disabling the firewall, allowing ping and enabling game mode then these ports would already be open? Also, how would I close them again via telnet? (EDIT: And the bracketed 'UDP', can I [and should I] give another command with a bracketed TCP as the Ubisoft instructions say to open for both protocols.)
That said, I'm still waiting for someone who can explain to me why I'm still getting interference from the router firewall even when it's disabled. I also mentioned in the other thread that often it is not remembering settings I am choosing, but I didn't outline them. What's happening is that having enabled Game Mode & Ping on WAN, and disabled the firewall (call this Setting B), at the end of my gaming session I switch the settings back to defaults (Setting A). When I boot the next day, the router has switched them back again to Setting B. Clearly, something is wrong with this router.
Beside this, you mentioned that there is a fault on my line. Can you tell me what is happening with that? Thanks muchly, Chris.
EDIT: If I'm to try Telnet, I need a guide for how to telnet into the Technicolor 582n router - a specific guide. I would also want it to tell me what the [router] commands are, exactly - that is, what they mean, so that I understand what I'm doing. I just can't seem to find this information via google, on this forum or on the usergroup. Could anybody link me to such a guide?

Hi Razr,
I'll try to answer each of your questions.
1) Queries about the commands above.
These commands change the 'shape' of the NAT on the router, by default for traffic to be routed to machines on your internal network, the traffic arriving from the internet into the WAN interface must match a NAT rule based on the originating IP address and the destination port. There rules are generated on the fly based on outgoing connections from the LAN to the WAN. Sometimes with games (for instance XBOX360) incoming traffic will directed to the correct port, but will be from a different IP address, the ports above change the rules on those ports to not require the IP address to match, just the port. This is explored in detail in the Wikipedia article on the subject. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_address_translation
We've never had the need to do this with TCP traffic, only UDP traffic.
If you have port forwarding setup then there is a permanent rule to forward all traffic that arrived on a specific WAN port range to a specific LAN device. A port forwarding rule is a permanent NAT rule. If you set up port forwarding rules then there is no need for game mode or any of this trouble.
2) Interference from the router firewall.
The router firewall operates in a similar manner to the NAT on the router. When the firewall is enabled all incoming traffic is blocked. Setting up port forwarding rules creates holes in the firewall. And creating outgoing connections also creates holes in the firewall on the fly, but only temporarily. For traffic to pass from the WAN to the LAN, both a NAT forwarding rule and a firewall exclusion rule must be present.
I don't really understand what 'interference' you're getting from the firewall. My draft telnet guide below may help you to debug this.
Question: Why have a firewall if NAT does the same job?
Answer: If you have an IP block and all your computers have a globally routeable IP address then the firewall will protect your computers and block unsolicited incoming connections. This will become very important when IPv6 prefixes start to be announced as all computers will have a globally routeable unicast IPv6 address.
3) Game mode
Enabling game mode changes the NAT rules so that all ports only require a port match, not an IP match to route traffic to the LAN from the WAN.
4) Disabling the firewall.
This doesn't really do anything as the NAT part of the router acts as a second firewall. Unless you're trying to configure port forwarding via Telnet and forget to add the firewall holes. This is not done for you if you add NAT rules manually via telnet.
5) Settings changing.
I can't explain this I'm afraid. However the router operates an in memory running configuration. This configuration is saved to memory once every two minutes and loaded at the next boot. If the router is rebooted before this save happens, the router will load the previously saved configuration file when next booted. However I suspect this is not applicable as you're probably not restarting the router.
6) Your fault
I don't know what's going on about this I'm afraid, someone else should be along shortly to update you on this.
7) Instructions for telnetting into the router.
The router is capable of much much more than we use it for, it is very flexible and the telnet interface offers a huge array of configuration options. We do not have a guide on how to use it and most of it is a mystery to us until we have need to delve into it. I've written a guide on how to debug port forwarding problems on the router for our community library but it is not complete. I'll paste the current draft below, it might give you some pointers.
I hope that at least some of this makes sense. Let me know if anything isn't clear

Advanced Port Forwarding Troubleshooting - TG582n & TG585v8
January 25th, 2013 at 16:44 by Matt Turner - edit	
This is an advanced troubleshooting guide for port forwarding on the TG582n and TG585v8. If you are trying to set up a server on a LAN PC and haven't been able to get port forwarding set up, this document will guide you through the process of confirming and testing the configuration.
In this article we will have a server running on LAN IP address 192.168.1.64 port 1234, we would like it to be accessible externally on port 1234 on IP address 212.159.6.9 which is the public IP address assigned to you by Plusnet.
Creating and configuring port forwarding
After logging into the router, browse to the 'Game and Application Sharing' option under the 'Toolbox' menu item.
Create an application and configure the options (external ports, internal ports, protocol)
Assign the newly created application to a network device
Port forwarding should now be working and you should be able to access your service from any internet connection
Confirming the configuration
We will assume that the application created is called 'My Server' and that the LAN PC has IP address '192.168.1.64'. You should check your LAN IP address by running the command 'ipconfig /all' and checking the IPv4 addresses listed against the active LAN device.
You will need to be able to connect to the router by telnet to run the commands listed below, a guide on how to to this is here
Telnet :service host list name="My Server"
Check that the application is defined correctly (protocol, external port, internal port).
Telnet :service host list
Check that the application is assigned to the correct IP address
Telnet :nat maplist
Check that the public IP address and port is mapped to the correct internal IP address and port
Telnet :firewall rule list chan=forward_host_service
Check that the firewall is configured correctly to forward the external ports to the internal IP address (in hexadecimal) and that the action is 'allow'.
If all results are good then everything should be working. If not, then begin testing the configuration.
Testing the configuration
Start Wireshark and use the filter 'tcp.dstport==1234' or 'udp.dstport==1234' depending on the protocol.
In a web browser load the page http://www.t1shopper.com/tools/port-scan/
Your IP address should already be listed, type in the port 1234 and press the 'Scan Now' button.
In Wireshark you should see a SYN packet from an external IP address.
If you see the packet then your server is not configured correctly.
If you don't see a SYN packet then we need to run further tests.
Telnet :connection list port=1234
Run the port scan from the website again and run the above telnet command less than 3 seconds later.
Things to check:
Check that the INIT line has remote IP to your WAN IP and correct port.
Check that the RESP line has private IP of your machine and correct port to remote IP.
If you can see a connection then the router is forwarding packets to your computer, but a firewall on your computer is blocking the packets.
If no connection is shown then a full connection debug is required, you will need to use a Telnet client like PUTTY which is able to log all session text to a text file.
Telnet :connection debug trace enabled
Telnet CTRL+q
Run the port scan from the website again
5 seconds later stop the debug by running telnet CTRL+s and :connection debug trace disabled
Open the log file and search for the string "212.159.6.9:1234"
If you see a KILL() log against the connection number then the connection has been dropped. The router is configured incorrectly.
If you see a pass packet log then the connection has been passed to the LAN and there is probably a firewall on your computer preventing the connection.

Hi Matt,
Thank you for that extensive reply, I appreciate it very much.

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If you set up port forwarding rules then there is no need for game mode or any of this trouble.

I have had more problems and more errors in the log if I do not use game mode despite port forwarding through the router interface being set up. Despite anything else, in fact.

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I don't really understand what 'interference' you're getting from the firewall. My draft telnet guide below may help you to debug this.

I continue to get 'ICMP Destination Unreachable code: Port Unreachable' errors for the firewall. First and foremost: If I have disabled the firewall, how am I getting firewall errors in the log? If it is disabled there should be no operation of it to create the error messages in the first place. If it is creating the error messages, then clicking the button to disable it is not in fact disabling it. Evidently if there are inbound and outbound errors from the "disabled" firewall, it is interfering. Or is there something else in the router that's interfering? Well, you mention telnet to debug, so I'll get to that. You mention different things that both have to have rules, so maybe, then it is one of these things which is blocking the ports and that's why I'm getting the errors (though it wouldn't explain why they are listed as firewall errors).
Secondly: The IP addresses involve what I suspect are other players (who I believe need to sync with me in some way in order to play multiplayer), the Ubisoft servers, I believe the Punk Buster servers ([effective spyware] required to play the game) and Brightview, which if my bad memory serves with all of the stuff I've looked at of late, I think is something to do with BT, so it's either another player in the UK, or it's some BT routing server or something like that. These errors are both outbound and inbound.
Seeing these things only when I'm trying to play the game and when there is difficulty makes me think they must be connected. As the only errors showing in the log are listed as firewall errors, I can only deduce that it is the firewall which is interfering. Conversely, when the game runs smoothly I see no errors in the router log.
By the way, is there some way to have the router write it's log to a text file on my hard drive, and automatically?

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This configuration is saved to memory once every two minutes and loaded at the next boot. If the router is rebooted before this save happens, the router will load the previously saved configuration file when next booted. However I suspect this is not applicable as you're probably not restarting the router.

It was the case that I changed the settings, disconnected and then powered off the router for the night. The problem has not yet reoccurred since I reset the router, however.
Regarding telnet. Thanks for the paste. I'll have a look at it separately and see if I can understand and use it. I have done telnet once, about five years ago, for about two minutes. ha. It was to telnet into my BE router, a Thompson 5 something or other, I forget now. I think PN used to supply the same router, anyway. It was to disable remote access. Anyway, I'm not afraid of the command line (as long as I generally know what I'm doing and how to reverse it should I screw it up), so hopefully I can get somewhere with it. I'll let you know.
EDIT:
First problem.

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Create an application and configure the options (external ports, internal ports, protocol)

My router interface doesn't give any option to specify 'external' or 'internal' ports. Just "Port range".

In the meantime ...
The problem with the router forgetting settings has returned.
Still waiting for news about these errors on my line. ...