I've been having problems with my internet for a while. While it's nothing major, it's quite annoying so I would like to get it fixed.

I started off noticing the issue when I log onto PokerStars. I log in and connect to the site fine, but it then takes up to a minute or so until I can access the tables, or see who is sitting on them. I contacted Stars about this and sent them a report. Their answer was that "the traces start failing at the first few hops for all sites traced" and that "packets are being lost in the first few hops".

Other issues I have include things like YouTube vids being glitchy for the first 20s or so, before they tend to sort themselves out, or Spotify taking a while to get going.

It seems like my problem is on initial connection to a service.

I checked my router to see if there were issues with it, and I had a problem with the firmware that couldn't be resolved. I bought a new router and the issue seemed to be fixed for a while, but has since (last month or so) returned and is as bad as it was before.

Other than this my connection seems to be fine, however I have been getting sporadic unstable connections, which may or may not be related.

Post the report you sent them, I'm assuming it was a tracert or pathping. You can also just run a new one if you've since replaced your router