Re: Are you having lag spikes, and can't figure out why? This might answer it

Though the issue might be where your traffic enters Level 3's networks, that doesn't mean that the problem is their network. They have a couple of articles about this that some of you might find informative: 

http://blog.level3.com/open-internet/chicken-game-played-child-isps-internet/

http://blog.level3.com/open-internet/observations-internet-middleman/

Of course your ISP is going to say that they're the problem. Why wouldn't they? But the problem is quite a bit more complex than that. Be persistent with your ISP. They do, in fact, have the power to remedy the problem, but a tier 1 tech won't know that, and is likely to just brush you off.

There might be throttling going on, but it's going to be by your ISP rather than by Level 3. It's not the first time that ISPs have throttled traffic as part of a dispute.