ICMP echo requests are often rate-limited and/or deprioritized traffic on most major routers. If forwarded _through_ the router, it'll be on the slow path (soft

ICMP echo requests are often rate-limited and/or deprioritized traffic on most major routers. If forwarded _through_ the router, it'll be on the slow path (software-based handling of packets) -- if forwarded _to_ the router, it'll often be on the control plane which is backed by a typically fairly slow CPU. Ping/tracert will give you a _general_ idea of what is going on, but it is not something to definitively answer a question (i.e., a tracert may have an asymmetrical path -- travel one route to the destination, but the return packets travel another route, which you'll never see).