Have you checked the connection quality of your surfboard 5100? See: http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84176

Dwnld speed really depends on luck of the draw as to who yo can conect to & how much upld bandwidth they have availabel or are offering. Even T1's & T3's may be slow at times b/c either their upld slots are shared b/w too many people or they're only offering a paltry amount for other users. Whilst you might be connected to several users you may only be getting a very small slice of what they have to offer. Some of these might also be intermitant where you're in a queue to share a slot & take it in turns. And some of these might be dial up (keep in mind dial up connections only have a max of 5-8 KB/s & most of that will be used for dwnlding, not uplding.)