AT&T U-verse → What could have reduced the few ms of ping time?

I noticed just yesterday my ping time is reduced from usual 32ms to around 28ms. Coincidentally we had a few outages in the afternoon.

I can only think of 2 things that changed:
- 6.11.1.29-enh.tm (I turned on IPV6)
- I turned off HomePNA in the rg

What could have changed?

Tracing route to www.google.com [74.125.225.146]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms 1 ms 2 ms homeportal [192.168.1.254]
2 25 ms 33 ms 25 ms xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx.lightspeed.cicril.sbcglobal.net [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]
3 * 26 ms 26 ms yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy
4 26 ms 26 ms 27 ms zzz.zzz.zzz.zzz
5 126 ms 97 ms 56 ms ggr3.cgcil.ip.att.net [aaa.aaa.aaa.aaa]
6 * 26 ms 25 ms bbb.bbb.bbb.bbb
7 * * 26 ms 209.85.254.128
8 26 ms 33 ms 26 ms 209.85.240.152
9 27 ms 26 ms 26 ms ord08s09-in-f18.1e100.net [74.125.225.146]

there are a number of things that could have changed, but that is a slight improvement in your ping, not a bad thing. The lower the ping number, the faster the responses are returned. Ping is the time it takes for your computer to send a request to a remote server and get an answer back. The lower the number the better. A gamer would be jealous.

So why doesn't your Google trace reflect that?

C:\util\dig>tracert www.google.com
 
Tracing route to www.google.com [2607:f8b0:4005:802::1014]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
 
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  1000-0000-0000-0000-09d7-04ed-a420-2062.6rd.ip6.sonic.net [2602:24a:de40:7d90::1]
  2    22 ms    22 ms    22 ms  cust-gw.ipv6.sonic.net [2602:24b:8179:10::1]
  3    21 ms    22 ms    22 ms  201.ge-6-1-1.gw.equinix-sj.sonic.net [2001:5a8:5:e::1]
  4    23 ms    22 ms    23 ms  0.xe-7-0-0.gw.pao1.sonic.net [2001:5a8:5:3::2]
  5    23 ms    23 ms    23 ms  2001:550:2:3a::9:1
  6    23 ms    23 ms    23 ms  2001:550:4::48
  7    23 ms    22 ms    23 ms  2001:550:2:1f::46:2
  8    23 ms    24 ms    39 ms  2001:4860::1:0:7ea
  9    24 ms    23 ms    24 ms  2001:4860:0:1::693
 10    23 ms    23 ms    23 ms  nuq05s02-in-x14.1e100.net [2607:f8b0:4005:802::1014]
 
Trace complete.
 

Wanted to do apples to apples comparison since I didn't have IPV6 before:

tracert -6 www.google.com

Tracing route to www.google.com [2607:f8b0:4009:806::1010]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms * 2 ms xxx:xxx:xxx:xxx::xxx
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 28 ms 26 ms 28 ms ord08s12-in-x10.1e100.net [2607:f8b0:4009:806::1010]

Trace complete.