this site hosts a great test to discover internet connection problems, like high/variable latency etc.
you might have to register (free) to use the tool.
http://www.dslreports.com/smokeping
What does SmokePing do?
SmokePing generates flexible graphs that, within hours, contain actual information about the quality & reachability of your IP address from several distributed locations.
The main result page for an IP you are monitoring shows an overview graph for each monitoring station. At the moment, there are three stations. The red line on the graph represents the average ping time over the time period. The graphs scroll to the left, with new data appearing on the right.
If you click any individual monitoring station (click the graph or the navigation links to the left), you are able to see the ping plot in more detail. In particular, the color of the line segments (color key at the bottom of the graph) indicates overall packet loss. "Smoke" indicates variability of latency (ping time) at that instant. The more variability, the more "smoke" that appears around the colored line segment.
Because our implementation of SmokePing uses LARGE packet sizes, and each data point on the graph is not just a single measurement, but many pings, the graph is more sensitive than normal ping plotting programs and will uncover latency variability or loss that may only show up when the line is under fairly heavy use.
you might have to register (free) to use the tool.
http://www.dslreports.com/smokeping
What does SmokePing do?
SmokePing generates flexible graphs that, within hours, contain actual information about the quality & reachability of your IP address from several distributed locations.
The main result page for an IP you are monitoring shows an overview graph for each monitoring station. At the moment, there are three stations. The red line on the graph represents the average ping time over the time period. The graphs scroll to the left, with new data appearing on the right.
If you click any individual monitoring station (click the graph or the navigation links to the left), you are able to see the ping plot in more detail. In particular, the color of the line segments (color key at the bottom of the graph) indicates overall packet loss. "Smoke" indicates variability of latency (ping time) at that instant. The more variability, the more "smoke" that appears around the colored line segment.
Because our implementation of SmokePing uses LARGE packet sizes, and each data point on the graph is not just a single measurement, but many pings, the graph is more sensitive than normal ping plotting programs and will uncover latency variability or loss that may only show up when the line is under fairly heavy use.