Level 3 don't appear to be handling any of my packets. This is to a VPS in London, UK. I can replicate this behaviour against nearly every other UK based IP I ping.
traceroute to cjbuckley.net (85.119.83.54), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 router.home.cjbuckley.com (10.10.99.1) 0.413 ms 0.516 ms 0.670 ms
2 L100.BSTNMA-VFTTP-75.verizon-gni.net (173.48.181.1) 4.906 ms 4.919 ms 4.903 ms
3 G0-15-0-0.BSTNMA-LCR-21.verizon-gni.net (100.41.203.220) 9.238 ms 9.336 ms 9.400 ms
4 ae9-0.BOS-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net (130.81.163.164) 24.267 ms ae1-0.BOS-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net (130.81.151.60) 24.363 ms so-3-0-0-0.BOS-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net (130.81.151.218) 9.411 ms
5 0.ae11.XL3.NYC1.ALTER.NET (152.63.20.69) 19.028 ms 19.049 ms 18.556 ms
6 0.xe-10-0-0.BR1.NYC1.ALTER.NET (152.63.19.201) 18.764 ms 0.xe-8-0-0.BR1.NYC1.ALTER.NET (152.63.16.65) 18.806 ms 18.855 ms
Interestingly, at 15:30 yesterday (2014-05-02) my latency returned to <100ms ping times, instead of the current ~200ms ones I have been experiencing for the last week.
To the poster who stated that this in some way isn't Verizon's fault. Sorry, but I completely disagree. My (our?) connections are clearly being shaped. If they weren't, one wouldn't see the rigid uniformity in time periods when icmp packets get mangled. Running IPSEC VPNs across the translantic, whilst these continue to operate, I do notice the connection slows when the latency creeps in, hence my desire to have it resolved.