Welcome to LW. It would help to know about your system and modem type but here are some basics. If you have more specific issues you can PM me and I will respond faster.

1) Both Downloads and Uploads are dependant on your bandwidth and the bandwidth of the host you are DL from.

example: If you have a Jurassic Modem (read 56k) then you will want to limit the number of files you are DL consecutively so you can DL at the fastest rate possible. Look on your options tab and make the necessary adjustments.

2) Even though the host advertises as T1 / T3 / Cable/DSL -- they may have their actual UL speed set very low. If they are available to chat, ask them to boost their UL speed if you are DL a big file or many files.

As I have said before there are many reasons why people set their UL speed very low. with DSL or better many people don't know that they can boost to 20 - 35 kbps and get no degredation in their DL speed. You just have to play around with it. Other reasons include -- they don't really want to share but as long as they are UL .00000000000005 kbps you can't say they don't share.