The education part is something I'm figuring out myself now with the help of a friend. Its likely level3, which is a "back-bone" ISP that connects ISPs like ATT/Comcast/etc to other Countries/ISPs (In this case, Canada since thats where the NA servers are). Level3 has sucked pretty hard lately.

http://maps.level3.com/default/#.VGw6NvnF_hR

The only way SE is solving ths problem is by moving the servers out of Canada... which would be nice.