I have a server located in Canada. I'm experiencing that, when connecting from the south-eastern US (southern California, Arizona), I see my downstream on connections to this server periodically drop to 0 for 1-3 seconds, then spike in the next second and receive all of the data that should have been received during the drop off period. This doesn't happen in regular intervals, but it does happen often, usually once every 5-10 seconds.

I've gotten trace routes from users with various ISPs and locations, but I'm not seeing any spikes or drop offs in response times, or any sort of packet loss. I'm guessing this is because ICMP is prioritized, though.

It seems like a misbehaving router along the way, but I have no idea how to figure out where the problem lies (let alone if there's any way to work around it). Is there any way for me to diagnose this problem?