This is because I have the Virgin Media Business servcie with a subnet of public IP addresses (6 in fact). In order to achieve that the business Superhub (same hardware different firmware) forms an L2TP tunnel into the VM network so that it can obtain truely static IP addresses. This means that all traffic has to traverse this tunnel and breakout from the core of the network.
So I tarcert to
www.bbc.oc.uk looks a bit different on this service:-
C:\>tracert
www.bbc.co.uk
Tracing route to
www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.246.94]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms gw [10.10.1.1]
2 46 ms 61 ms 48 ms brad-bam-1.network.virginmedia.net [194.145.148.
188]
3 42 ms 37 ms 42 ms brad-core-1b-ge48.network.virginmedia.net [213.1
05.159.42]
4 49 ms 84 ms 18 ms brad-core-2b-ae2-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.
43.163.237]
5 26 ms 43 ms 35 ms leed-bb-1b-ae6-0.network.virginmedia.net [81.97.
80.121]
6 55 ms 38 ms 51 ms leed-bb-1a-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253
.187.185]
7 32 ms 70 ms 69 ms nrth-bb-1b-as2-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253
.185.101]
8 34 ms 23 ms 31 ms tele-ic-4-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.
174.18]
9 43 ms 64 ms 33 ms pos6-1.rt0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.237]
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 68 ms 94 ms 32 ms ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
12 29 ms 39 ms 63 ms 132.185.255.165
13 102 ms 88 ms 32 ms bbc-vip015.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.94]
Trace complete.
Notice the first hop after the local router isn't the local CMTS at all but the distant end of the L2TP tunnel.
I agree though that the base latency is higher than I hoped on this service.