Ongoing Latency Issue

For the past several months I have been having latency and packet loss issues on and off again, that usually appear centered in the local Cox network or near the bridge to a backbone provider. This evening got pretty bad, with 200ms+ going from my modem out the door. For normal net usage this is annoying but livable. However, for online gaming, this is extremely frustrating. While I am no expert, from everything I am seeing there is both unpredictable latency throughout the Southern California Cox network, as well some packet loss.

For background I reside in a large apartment complex, which I am sure impacts it to some degree, but I find it extremely unlikely that 12:00am on a Friday evening should be worse than most other Fridays, weekends, or week nights during peak hours.

While I have run numerous tracerts and pathpings, I am including the 2 I just ran below. While most are a mess with wildly varying latency, Hops 2-4, 7, and 8 are particularly notable. Hops 13-16 can safely be ignored as they are being blocked by the network.

Tracing route to 12.129.209.68 over a maximum of 30 hops

  1     1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.1.1
  2   135 ms   138 ms   172 ms  10.82.8.1
  3   285 ms   261 ms   256 ms  ip68-4-11-194.oc.oc.cox.net [68.4.11.194]
  4     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  5   221 ms   156 ms   146 ms  ip68-4-11-230.oc.oc.cox.net [68.4.11.230]
  6   179 ms   208 ms   145 ms  langbprj01-ae1.rd.la.cox.net [68.1.1.13]
  7   229 ms   221 ms   235 ms  xe-5-0-0.edge2.LosAngeles9.Level3.net [4.53.230.81]
  8   278 ms   257 ms   283 ms  vlan90.csw4.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.69.144.254]
  9   120 ms   156 ms   160 ms  ae-91-91.ebr1.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.69.137.13]
 10   205 ms   206 ms   190 ms  ae-6-6.ebr1.Tustin1.Level3.net [4.69.153.222]
 11   251 ms   185 ms   179 ms  ae-106-3506.bar2.Tustin1.Level3.net [4.69.158.102]
 12   241 ms   199 ms   220 ms  192.205.37.145
 13   196 ms   256 ms   252 ms  cr1.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.128.102]
 14   252 ms   280 ms   300 ms  gar20.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.128.181]
 15   144 ms   140 ms   194 ms  12-122-254-234.attens.net [12.122.254.234]
 16   219 ms   231 ms   228 ms  mdf001c7613r0002.lax1.attens.net [206.16.68.54]
 17   287 ms   228 ms   251 ms  12.129.209.68

Trace complete.

Tracing route to 12.129.209.68 over a maximum of 30 hops

  0  PC.oc.cox.net [192.168.1.103]
  1  192.168.1.1
  2  10.82.8.1
  3  ip68-4-11-194.oc.oc.cox.net [68.4.11.194]
  4  ip68-4-11-231.oc.oc.cox.net [68.4.11.231]
  5  ip68-4-11-94.oc.oc.cox.net [68.4.11.94]
  6  langbprj01-ae1.rd.la.cox.net [68.1.1.13]
  7  xe-5-0-0.edge2.LosAngeles9.Level3.net [4.53.230.81]
  8  vlan90.csw4.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.69.144.254]
  9  ae-91-91.ebr1.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.69.137.13]
 10  ae-6-6.ebr1.Tustin1.Level3.net [4.69.153.222]
 11  ae-106-3506.bar2.Tustin1.Level3.net [4.69.158.102]
 12  192.205.37.145
 13  cr1.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.128.102]
 14  gar20.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.128.181]
 15  12-122-254-234.attens.net [12.122.254.234]
 16  mdf001c7613r0002.lax1.attens.net [206.16.68.54]
 17  12.129.209.68

Computing statistics for 425 seconds...
            Source to Here   This Node/Link
Hop  RTT    Lost/Sent = Pct  Lost/Sent = Pct  Address
  0                                           PC.oc.cox.net [192.168.1.103]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  1    0ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  192.168.1.1
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  2  215ms     1/ 100 =  1%     1/ 100 =  1%  10.82.8.1
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  3  213ms     1/ 100 =  1%     1/ 100 =  1%  ip68-4-11-194.oc.oc.cox.net [68.4.11.194]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  4  217ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  ip68-4-11-231.oc.oc.cox.net [68.4.11.231]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  5  214ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  ip68-4-11-94.oc.oc.cox.net [68.4.11.94]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  6  212ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  langbprj01-ae1.rd.la.cox.net [68.1.1.13]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  7  207ms     1/ 100 =  1%     1/ 100 =  1%  xe-5-0-0.edge2.LosAngeles9.Level3.net [4.53.230.81]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  8  206ms     1/ 100 =  1%     1/ 100 =  1%  vlan90.csw4.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.69.144.254]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  9  212ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  ae-91-91.ebr1.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.69.137.13]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 10  213ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  ae-6-6.ebr1.Tustin1.Level3.net [4.69.153.222]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 11  216ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  ae-106-3506.bar2.Tustin1.Level3.net [4.69.158.102]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 12  214ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  192.205.37.145
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 13  ---     100/ 100 =100%   100/ 100 =100%  cr1.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.128.102]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 14  ---     100/ 100 =100%   100/ 100 =100%  gar20.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.128.181]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 15  ---     100/ 100 =100%   100/ 100 =100%  12-122-254-234.attens.net [12.122.254.234]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 16  ---     100/ 100 =100%   100/ 100 =100%  mdf001c7613r0002.lax1.attens.net [206.16.68.54]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 17  221ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  12.129.209.68

Trace complete.

Any help or information would be greatly appreciated.