Rightly or wongly, I've come to the conclusion that using the service username bypasses 21CN.
Doing this drastically improves my latency (30~ > 11~) and removes 3 hops from trace route.
Still using powerline adapters so deduct 2-3ms from everything.Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.103]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 3 ms 2 ms 2 ms BH5A_Bridged [192.168.1.254]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * 12 ms 31.55.187.197
4 13 ms 13 ms 14 ms 31.55.187.216
5 13 ms 12 ms 13 ms 195.99.127.172
6 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms 195.99.127.52
7 13 ms 13 ms 12 ms peer2-xe8-1-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.2
55.103]
8 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms 194.74.65.42
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 14 ms 14 ms 14 ms ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
11 16 ms 15 ms 15 ms 132.185.255.165
12 14 ms 14 ms 14 ms fmt-vip132.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.103]
Trace complete.
We have at least two users, on BT Internetz, showing identical behaviour. At least a 10ms increase upon entry to the host labelled '21CN'. For me, this was a tripling of latency. 11ms became 30ms to bbc.co.uk.
Newt, your 21CN node has 'mr' (Manchester?) and mine showed 'bm' (Birmingham?!) despite being spitting distance from Cardiff / Bristol.
I guess none of this matters if BT Retail have bought all their transit at two nodes at the other end of the country and have the ability to tunnel traffic through devices that have probably been in service since the dinosaurs roamed the earth?
Do we have any other BT users on 'ere? Care to share trace routes?