Peak-Time Connection Problems

[#1]

Hey, here's another interesting tracert - I wonder why my streaming speeds on YouTube suck..
Tracing route to www.youtube.com [208.117.236.74]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  . [192.168.2.1]
  2    35 ms    44 ms    45 ms  lo0-plusnet.pte-ag2.plus.net [195.166.128.72]
  3    37 ms    35 ms  166 ms  ge0-0-0-504.pte-gw2.plus.net [84.92.4.90]
  4    35 ms    44 ms    40 ms  195.66.224.185
  5  106 ms  106 ms  106 ms  te2-2.ccr01.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.1.105]
  6  105 ms  102 ms  110 ms  te3-3.mpd01.jfk01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.1.210]
  7  111 ms  125 ms  112 ms  te4-4.mpd01.ewr03.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.1.38]
  8  124 ms  124 ms  124 ms  you-tube-llc.demarc.cogentco.com [38.101.84.66]
  9    *        *        *    Request timed out.
10    *        *        *    Request timed out.
11    *        *        *    Request timed out.
12    *        *        *    Request timed out.
13    *        *        *    Request timed out.
14  181 ms  182 ms  181 ms  youtube.l.google.com [208.117.236.74]
Trace complete.
Oh. I'll tracert Youtube again after 0000 and I suspect those hops will actually work.
How do I go about getting this investigated properly? I've consulted a few different forums and no-one seems to have any idea what could be causing it.

[#2]

Youtube not being able to cope with demand?
Tracing route to portal.plus.net [212.159.8.2]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1   <10 ms     1 ms     1 ms  voyager.home [192.168.1.1]
  2    40 ms    37 ms    42 ms  lo0-homesurf.ptn-ag2.plus.net [195.166.128.54]
  3    40 ms    38 ms    48 ms  ge1-0-0-205.ptn-gw01.plus.net [84.92.3.97]
  4    91 ms   221 ms   202 ms  gi0-2-32.ptc-gw1.plus.net [195.166.129.10] 
  5    53 ms    54 ms    61 ms  pos1-0.pih-cr1.plus.net [195.166.129.250]
  6    50 ms    48 ms    49 ms  vlan7.pih-gw3.plus.net [212.159.0.26]
  7    48 ms    54 ms    81 ms  if25.pih-lb04.plus.net [212.159.0.18]
  8    84 ms    48 ms    50 ms  portal.plus.net [212.159.8.2]
Trace complete.

[#3]

Hops not responding to a tracert ping don't necessarily indicate a problem; routers are there to route and should give that priority.
If the routers are busy ping requests can timeout as was happening on the way to YouTube. Since the YouTube server did respond to each of the 3 probes the intermediate routing must have succeeded.

[#4]

You're right, and after the result came back the same even after streaming speeds returned to normal I realised I was jumping the gun trying to find anything that might explain it.
Oh well, back to the drawing board.
adie:quote

[#5]

Since two weeks I have terrible pings,usually after 4 pm, but today since morning.
In the evening I can get pings up to 8000ms.
Example:
traceroute to google.co.uk (66.249.93.104), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1  www.routerlogin.com (192.168.0.1)  0.722 ms  0.546 ms  0.452 ms
2  lo0-plusnet.pte-ag2.plus.net (195.166.128.72)  359.562 ms  493.118 ms  550.890 ms
3  * ge0-0-0-504.pte-gw2.plus.net (84.92.4.90)  1001.133 ms  42.764 ms
4  195.66.224.125 (195.66.224.125)  359.059 ms  88.191 ms  371.564 ms
5  209.85.252.40 (209.85.252.40)  379.930 ms 209.85.252.42 (209.85.252.42)  373.435 ms  701.122 ms
6  216.239.43.123 (216.239.43.123)  473.369 ms  331.714 ms 209.85.241.84 (209.85.241.84)  542.880 ms
7  216.239.43.123 (216.239.43.123)  598.228 ms 72.14.233.114 (72.14.233.114)  87.430 ms  695.401 ms
8  209.85.255.23 (209.85.255.23)  745.042 ms  274.000 ms 72.14.233.79 (72.14.233.79)  343.316 ms
9  216.239.47.25 (216.239.47.25)  440.932 ms ug-in-f104.google.com (66.249.93.104)  206.820ms  396.635 ms