Your node may be overloaded and that's why your ping is going up. See if you still can't get sub-100 pings during non-peak hours, preferably sometime between 12am and 6am. Like all ISPs RR's service will vary by area but generally from what I've heard you should at least be able to get 50-100 pings to a few servers.
I had @Home in Colorado Springs and it was nice, I got awesome d/ls and good pings everywhere. However when they went bankrupt my service reverted to Adelphia, I still get good downloads but now my pings suck. Adelphia has THE worst routing of any ISP. Before I establish a connection anywhere I have to go through like 5 hops in San Jose and then sometimes meander down to Texas. End result = my ping is never below 100 because that's about where it's at when I leave the San Jose hops. Average ping is like 130-150, even to places where it used to be sub-50 on @Home. Oh well. I would definitely be looking at DSL because my friend has it and he has very good pings as well but it's not an option because I'm too far from the CO. Only another year till college...
I had @Home in Colorado Springs and it was nice, I got awesome d/ls and good pings everywhere. However when they went bankrupt my service reverted to Adelphia, I still get good downloads but now my pings suck. Adelphia has THE worst routing of any ISP. Before I establish a connection anywhere I have to go through like 5 hops in San Jose and then sometimes meander down to Texas. End result = my ping is never below 100 because that's about where it's at when I leave the San Jose hops. Average ping is like 130-150, even to places where it used to be sub-50 on @Home. Oh well. I would definitely be looking at DSL because my friend has it and he has very good pings as well but it's not an option because I'm too far from the CO. Only another year till college...