Services baby! First, you got all these internet related services chunking around in the background (update, IE, messenger, etc.), and then, you have your ISP's garbage on their too. On top of that, the MTU registers on the modem are are defaulted to midrange/non-optimized levels. So, you got all this junk going on, and the modem is limited. Get yoruself a modem optimization utility, disable some services, and walk away from IE in favor of something lighter, like Slimbrower, Avant Browser, or something really small like K-meleon.
