I am running into the same mentioned issues of near unplayable latency. I had consistent 2+ second spikes (the worse being 6 seconds) all over the past few weeks. Cox is also my cable provider:

Tracing route to 204.2.229.9 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms 1 ms router.asus.com [192.168.1.1]
2 9 ms 8 ms 8 ms 10.74.0.1
3 8 ms 13 ms 8 ms ip68-4-13-78.oc.oc.cox.net [68.4.13.78]
4 10 ms 8 ms 6 ms ip68-4-11-8.oc.oc.cox.net [68.4.11.8]
5 10 ms 12 ms 17 ms 68.1.1.63
6 17 ms 13 ms 12 ms ae-7.a00.lsanca20.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.194.165]
7 39 ms 44 ms 43 ms ae-3.r01.lsanca20.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.2.233]
8 27 ms 25 ms 28 ms ae-8.r23.lsanca07.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.6.48]
9 16 ms 18 ms 18 ms ae-12.r22.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.4.150]
10 58 ms * 37 ms ae-19.r01.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.27]
11 38 ms 35 ms 36 ms ae-1.a00.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.2.228]
12 48 ms 48 ms 46 ms xe-0-0-42-1.a00.snjsca04.us.ce.gin.ntt.net [129.250.195.42]
13 * 54 ms 52 ms 204.2.229.242
14 42 ms 44 ms 39 ms 204.2.229.9