Strange Ping Spikes and Packet Loss

[#1]

Hey all
Sorry to chime in on the many threads about packet loss and stuff. I dont know what to classify this post under
Anyway, I noticed some strange stuff this weekend. Friday night we had some guests over and my wife fired up a game. People watching on demand on the TV caused really spikey pings in game. It was going up and down between 25-78ms, just shooting up and down constantly. We turned off the TV and everything else, and the game ping was stable.
I was watching TV on Sunday night and went upstairs to check out how games ran. Everything was perfectly fine, and I was watching 1080p streams. Anyone have any idea what could have been happening on Friday ? I made sure it was just the TV and computer connected, no other wifi devices and stuff, and it was the same test on Friday night.
The other thing I have noticed is that there is regular bouts of packet loss on my TBB graph, from around 6pm to 12pm. Anyone have any idea what this might be ?
Last thing I have noticed is that sometimes game pings are 25ms, others they go up to 32ish, and it is not spikey but stable at those latency levels for a whole match. I suspect this is just connecting to other servers or something, but for my own personal feel good, it is pretty fun to have friends over and show off having 25ms
Sorry for a long and maybe double post, Have a great day

[#2]

We did have a slight outage Friday night so there's a chance some of the network might have been out of balance.
The packet loss doesn't look good and could point towards exchange congestion.
It looks like there's a capacity issue at your exchange with one of the virtual paths however at the moment I can't confirm if that's the one your connected to at the moment.
Ping times can vary and like you've said its mostly dependent on the servers.

[#3]

Thanks for the update Matthew.
Not sure when you looked at my graph, but my modem was off for some hours while we had some electric work done. My concern is just the packet loss from about 6pm.
It is very strange that it disappears at about 11pm, even though the line is still in use.
Anyway, I will keep an eye on it

[#4]

Bubbles,
With exchange congestion, it is not so much a matter of when you are using things, but when EVERYONE is using things.  Too much demand on the BT's exchange network and everything slows down

[#5]

@Townman: You are always there to reply, such a helpful guy I get that the congestion is caused by others hammering the poor exchange, my main concern is the packet loss and the unstable ping. I do currency trading at home in my spare time, and it causes some problems to have sometimes large gaps in my graphs and monitoring software. It works fine during non peak hours. Would a business product help?
On a side note, I do have the pro addon. Could this cause any issues ? I turned it on some time ago because I noticed the TV was buffering constantly even with 240p videos (And wow 240p does not look pretty :P)

[#6]

Hi Bubbles,
The business products are provided on 20:1 contention as opposed to residential's 50:1.  How much that might improve your responsiveness / congestion I do not know / have the experience to advise.  I do not fully understand the Pro offering - have have seen several suggestions that (against the newer products) it now delivers no real benefit.  Hopefully someone else will comment on that.
Over the last few days there have been some extreme issues for some users - see my mountain in my BQM (evening of 16th March).
Note the BQM in your wig is a snapshot BQM rather than a current / live one.  Also one of the mods is likely to ask you to reduce its size so as to comply with the rulee.  

[#7]

Thanks for that
I have tried to change my sig to be smaller, hope it is better now. I clicked on share live graph of tbb, hope it works properly now.
Sorry for getting it wrong
Townman, I have noticed your "mountain", maybe it has something to do with the BT maintenance ?

[#8]

Hi Bubbles,
Thought to be known congestion in BT's systems in Manchester and football streaming wasting the internet.
Interesting that your plot does not show much increased latency, but does show a marked increase in packet loss during the evening.
There is no need for "sorry" when learning and doing.  Not being willing to learn and do though would require a "sorry".  

Kevin

[#9]

I too am getting a lot of issues with latency and packet loss during random times of a day. Early days on the tbb monitor but showing a lot already. Oh and i'm routed through Manchester.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/9234358dea73140bf50db824d61dc35d.html