Why can't I see the 2nd hop?

[CPTBoy]

Does this mean my exchange is congested?

No matter what I trace, I always get a timeout on the 2nd hop.

Emiles-MacBook-Air:~ emile$ traceroute 8.8.8.8
traceroute to 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 192.168.50.1 (192.168.50.1) 4.292 ms 1.886 ms 1.870 ms
2 * * *
3 cdsl1-ctn-vl2173.ip.isnet.net (196.38.72.113) 106.506 ms 104.875 ms 103.427 ms
4 196.35.115.128 (196.35.115.128) 213.283 ms 121.012 ms 130.166 ms
5 core1b-ctn-gi0-2.ip.isnet.net (168.209.6.4) 28.812 ms 21.780 ms 22.254 ms
6 168.209.6.131 (168.209.6.131) 122.701 ms 124.381 ms 124.502 ms
7 168.209.100.222 (168.209.100.222) 326.691 ms 307.090 ms 307.174 ms
8 209.85.248.226 (209.85.248.226) 307.552 ms 306.337 ms 307.072 ms
9 209.85.252.44 (209.85.252.44) 182.926 ms 328.595 ms 183.390 ms
10 209.85.253.92 (209.85.253.92) 263.294 ms 371.887 ms 307.088 ms
11 209.85.243.33 (209.85.243.33) 181.697 ms 184.848 ms 179.871 ms
12 216.239.49.28 (216.239.49.28) 374.567 ms 307.065 ms 306.992 ms
13 * * *
14 google-public-dns-a.google.com (8.8.8.8) 358.115 ms 306.698 ms 307.496 ms

Is this normal?

[Paul_S]

No, it just means that the upstream device is not responding to traceroute ICMP packets which is not a problem.