Just tried Ping Plotter and I get terrible results all along the line, no matter what site. Called my ISP and they really trashed this program and said the problem was my phone line (I live in a rural area and my phone line is not the best). But that wouldn't really affect tracert results, would it?<br><br>

Phone line quality can absolutely affect the performance of your connection. Most modems do error correction automatically, and that *should* correct the packet loss - but not always. If your packet loss and latency is showing up at hop 1, then your phone line (or modem configuration) could very much be contributing to your problem. If hop 1 doesn't have a latency/packet loss problem, but hop 2 does (and hop 1 is on the ISP side of your connection), then you can start pointing figures in the direction of your ISP (although this is *very* general).<br><br>There's some pretty good information about optimizing your modem at <A HREF="http://808hi.com/56k/index.htm" target="_new">http://808hi.com/56k/index.htm</A>.<br><br>

Hi Pete -<br><br>Hey, thanks so much for your reply to my post! I'm kinda in over my head on this network stuff What I noticed about Ping Plotter's results was that there weren't any particular points along the line that were consistently<br>slow... there were packet losses and slow responses from just about every point at various times. Further, I just ran the program again (it's after midnight here now) and things improved substantially.<br><br>There are only two ISP's with local dialups out here in the boonies of Southern Arizona where I live... and they both suck. They are small, independent firms and I have heard that small ISP's don't get the good routes that the "big guys" do. Or maybe they simply know that we don't have<br>much choice :)<br><br>I have been looking into the two-way satellite services available from Echostar and DirectPC (I don't think the "download-only" satellite systems would help me much). But the equipment is very expensive at this point. I'm<br>hoping the cost will come down in the not too distant future.<br><br>And by the way... I have utilized the "808hi.com" site frequently. Great resource. That's where I found the link to your program.<br><br>Thanks again for your info!<br><br><br><br>