>> What it sounds like is that it seems they are either packet shaping or they have run out of pipe bandwidth and its full.
Both. Certain protocols are shaped and p2p/nntp are down to practically zero during peak. Ive even seen some reports of even news (non-binary text) nntp being blocked. Best was they included their own newsgroup in there!
Take away the p2p/nntp and even http is seeing slow-downs. IPStream http is even down to around 400kbps many nights due to their centrals being under heavy load. There reps are aware of it - they just wont admit it.
Many datastream VPs are also seriously suffering from congestion too. LLU is about the only service that is seeing some sort of decent hhtp, but Ive noticed a few reports of late that this is now beginning to suffer too.