I tried plugging the modem straight into my laptop and running Pingplotter but the results were about the same.
called my ISP and it turns out the problems are with them as many people are experiencing slower than paid for speeds and internet slow down. (i'm not experiencing any of this just packet loss) This happened two weeks ago but they said the problem was fixed, apparently not. Guess there's nothing i can do.

Thanks for all the help Gary!