Latency and Jitter at Modem (Mediacom)

[nick731992]

So for about a month now I've been having latency issues while gaming. Jitter is the main problem. I see spikes of latency that seem to start at my modem. I went into PingPlotter and ran a trace to my modem and these were the results.

Target Name: 173-16-52-1.client.mchsi.com
IP: 173.16.52.1
Date/Time: 3/26/2016 12:53:20 PM to 3/26/2016 12:53:35 PM

1 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms LINKSYS03207 [192.168.1.1]
2 16 ms 13 ms 27 ms 34 ms 20 ms 16 ms 32 ms 173-16-52-1.client.mchsi.com [173.16.52.1]

Ping statistics for 173-16-52-1.client.mchsi.com
Packets: Sent = 7, Received = 7, Lost = 0 (0.0%)
Round Trip Times: Minimum = 13ms, Maximum = 34ms, Average = 22ms

Jitter is anywhere from 6.50 to 13.75 and sometimes more. It shows in the red on PingPlotter. It seems really high for the second hop. My question is, is my modem defective or is it a router or cable issue? Is this normal?

We upgraded internet speeds recently and got a new modem when we upgraded. I never noticed any issues on the old modem. Mediacom also came out and ran a new line from the pole to the house because it was leaking. If it was leaking, is it possible it damaged the coax in our house?

I also noticed Black Dust/Residue on the connection between the cable and the modem. Is that a sign of some sort of damage? I cleaned it off with a Q-tip but I'm not sure that will help.

I'm going to try and get a CAT6 cable to run between my modem and router. Right now it's a CAT5 that came with the router.

Router: Linksys EA4500
Modem: Arris TM822G

Any help or opinions are very much appreciated. I know I asked a ton of questions but I'm trying to put in anything that I think might be the issue.

 

[bill001g]

22ms of jitter will have no impact on a game. You need jitter closer to 100ms to really be able to detect it.

That small amount of jitter is likely caused by other people sharing the connection with you. Sometimes you have to wait for other peoples data to be transmitted since very technically your modem is actually receiving all the data for everyone who also has a cable modem in your neighborhood. You just never see it because the modem is designed to ignore it but it still takes time to receive this data and discard it.