Ok here are the test results from cobalt racks.com using my program: After removing bounces from my ISP, here is where all the trouble begings.

Cobaltracks.com:
1-9 are my ISP so:

10 6 3 208.172.39.205 Unknown aar5-serial-5-0-0.anaheim.cw.net
11 6 3 208.172.34.62 Unknown acr2-loopback.anaheim.cw.net
12 5 3 204.70.9.148 Fontana corerouter2.bloomington.cw.net
13 7 3 166.48.40.1 WASHINGTON D.C. bordercore3.washington.cw.net
14 7 3 166.48.40.70 WASHINGTON D.C. visual-link-internet.washington.cw.net
15 8 4 206.151.67.222 Unknown ded2router.visuallink.com
16 9 5 206.151.69.252 39.180N, 78.174W http://www.cobaltracks.com

All of the pings are good (less than 20) until 13. Then it goes to

13. 92
14. 134
15. 141
16. 124

Now, a customer should get the same or better right! Nope. In fact, cobaltracks.com customers are not even on the same network (this explains why you can access cobaltracks.com even though your own site may be down)!

Here is the test from a customer.

User IP ######### (doesn't want it listed).
Here 1-8 are my ISP so:
9 6 3 208.172.39.49 Unknown apr1-serial-5-0-0.anaheim.cw.net
10 6 3 208.172.34.62 Unknown acr2-loopback.anaheim.cw.net
11 7 3 206.24.226.61 WASHINGTON D.C. acr1-loopback.washingtondck.cw.net
12 7 3 206.24.226.8 WASHINGTON D.C. bar3-loopback.washingtondck.cw.net
13 6 3 208.173.0.118 WASHINGTON D.C. visual-link-internet.washingtondck.cw.net
14 8 4 208.155.64.225 39.180N, 78.174W ############

Now all the pings are below 20 until it gets to Washington. Then we go downhill.

11 92
12 93
13 152
14 168

All I know is this, I feel sorry for VisualLink Internet customers, because Cobaltracks.com is running their customers' servers on their network. That explains why you also have "slooooowwwww" connections and pings. Toooooooooo (not a typo) many people are running on the network. This includes dialup users, broadband users, and cobaltracks.com's servers.

Am I wrong in thinking that those ping times aren't all that bad? Yes, they run their customers' servers off another network, but aside from that... ???

Actually, I've got to line up behind Chicken on this one. I've certainly seen worse end-to-end performance on a network. While those times aren't phenomenal, they're not terrible either.

If those times were consistant, we would probably have stayed with them, but our average pings were up in the 300 to 500 range, not exclusively but enough to cause me enough grief to move to another provider.