[Sephiroth]

The Tivo box 10 meg feed is not on a frequency that your internet uses. So that won't interfere with the main broadband save for any wider congestion on the line card at the local hub.

That said if your area 31 is my area 31 (Reading - there appears to be more than one, e.g. Cambridge) then I've seen some decline in my previously perfect service since around that time. It's improved now.

I was told that the line card I'm on was part of a resegmentation in December and I also read that there were major uplift works at the Reading hub which I suspect would lead to some temporary crowding of users onto existing line cards while they bring the additional or upgraded kit into service. This is specu;lation though.

In the past week, the service has improved and I note much lower latency on the TBB graph.

As for "all over the counbtry" - the only common factors might be:

1/
Simultaneous area upgrades causing the phenomenon you've described - this would be a per area phenomenon not interlinked.

2/
Current peering issues (I believe VM don't pay for anough peering bandwith - see LINX for details)

3/
Increase of customer usage in your immediate locality (optical node - the street cabinet with 240v label on it).

Prolly a combination of the three and I think you had already worked this out.