Hello,

Thanks for writing in!

These are *definitely* some interesting results. Some devices are configured to down prioritize (or not respond to) ICMP echo requests. Usually when this happens, as long as the hop directly after is performing well, then you don't need to factor this behavior into your troubleshooting efforts. We cover this topic in quite a bit more detail here:

http://www.pingman.com/kb/5

Your guess about bandwidth saturation *seems* to be pretty accurate from what we can see in your results. You've got a pattern starting at hop #3 that carries through to your final destination. It is, however, a bit difficult to get a clear picture of this in your data here - as the intermediate hops in your route appear to be down prioritizing ICMP TTL expired packets. The pattern you're seeing at your intermediate hops *looks* to be the same as what you're seeing at your final destination (just amplified as a result of the down prioritization). I've attached a screenshot of what I'm referring to here for reference.

It may be helpful to try tracing to some other targets here - see if you can find something with a shorter route (where the intermediate hops aren't down prioritizing ICMP TTL expired packets). You could also try tracing directly to the device at hop #3 to see what the performance there looks like.

We've also got a guide that goes through some best practices for troubleshooting an issue like this, which may prove helpful to your cause here:

http://www.pingplotter.com/netnirvana/

Hopefully this helps out! If you should find yourself with any other questions, or needing any other assistance - please don't hesitate to let us know.

Best wishes,

-Gary