Thanks a lot for the info Tyson! Much appreciated.

Re your second point - cool no probs I'll follow that Analyzing pingplotter data guide and check the results and report back.

Just to check re your third point - should I:
o Go into pingplotter then add the ip of my router as a target - and then if I see red lines in there, then that suggests a local problem?

(Also just to check, when you say local problem; do you mean within my house [ie. router, ONT, or cables, or wifi, or devices issue] and not likely to be outside my house like their cabling up poles or their exchanges etc?)

Also, just to check, if you had to guess, what would you say 'hop 2' is? My setup goes:

Laptop connected by ethernet, modem/router (<- think the modem is hop 1) then ONT, cables leading outside the house