Pete,

Many thanks for the fast reply... the post does help a lot -- but I'm not sure the behavior I'm seeing "looks" like that. If I UPLOAD a 9Mb file to an FTP server at my ISP it takes about 3 minutes - and the RTT's don't go all that wacky; but if I DOWNLOAD the same file (which takes the SAME 3 minutes!), I get a wildly different result.

Here's the DOWNLOAD info:
Target Name: www.mv.com
IP: 199.125.85.33
Date/Time: 05/02/04 9:20:07 PM to 05/02/04 9:24:12 PM

Hop Sent Err PL% Min Max Avg Host Name / [IP]
1 50 0 0.0 0 3 1 [10.15.2.1]
2 50 0 0.0 2 7 3 [192.168.102.1]
3 50 1 2.0 18 1243 768 gw-dslc-1.mv.net [207.22.56.1]
4 50 1 2.0 18 1212 765 copper.mv.net [199.125.85.33]

Here's the summary on the UPLOAD of the same file:

Target Name: www.mv.com
IP: 199.125.85.33
Date/Time: 05/02/04 9:24:27 PM to 05/02/04 9:28:02 PM

Hop Sent Err PL% Min Max Avg Host Name / [IP]
1 44 0 0.0 0 5 1 [10.15.2.1]
2 44 0 0.0 2 8 3 [192.168.102.1]
3 44 1 2.3 18 424 148 gw-dslc-1.mv.net [207.22.56.1]
4 44 0 0.0 18 255 141 copper.mv.net [199.125.85.33]

I can absolutely understand saturation - but I'd expect that it ould EITHER be truly symmetric (which my DSL service is spposed to be) OR have DOWLOAD be more durable since most consumer network services are tuned up to be symmetric...

Have you seen "one of these"?

Thanks again,

Dennis