WinModem. Do you own one of these? Are you always getting disconnected from the net? Are your ping times for Quake 3 terrible? Does your computer seem sluggish when you're on the net?
If you own one, I'll let you in on a little secret.
The problem, most likely, is not your ISP. Its your winmodem. Most ISP's aren't allowed to blame the customer, or their equipment, so they dutifully go through the troubleshooting steps, trying to help you get, and stay, connected -- but its a well known fact in tech-support circles how bad these modems are. Why are they considered to be so bad?
Winmodems do not posess a UART chip on them. Why? Because it saves the manufacturer a few dollars. Thats it. The price difference when it comes to making one with or without one is not that big, but it saves the manufacturers a few dollars per unit, which adds up to big savings for them.
"So what?" you say... "Why does it matter?"
Basically, without that chip, a huge amount of work is offloaded onto your processor. Estimates of 10% processor use, JUST by the winmodem, are pretty accurate. Windows handles the functions of that UART chip, and thus, your computer processor does the work. This is a very dumb idea, but again, it saves the manufacturers a few dollars each unit, so they do it.
Ping times are affected as well, because your modem is using your computer processor. Ever notice when you play a grahpics intensive 3D online game, Quake 3 for example, your ping times go to hell? That's because your modem wants some of your processor's time, but the 3D game is eating it up rendering graphics (assuming you don't have a modern video card; modern video cards come with their own grahics processors). That's the price you pay.
Winmodems typically come as PCI based modems; most ISA based modems are not Winmodems, so if you want to go buy a 'real' modem that isn't a winmodem, look for a non-PCI modem (athough ISA is now antiquated and you won't find anything, not even modems, available in ISA form factor anymore). Any external USB modem you find won't be a Winmodem. Even some ISA based modems (amazingly enough) are Winmodems as well, so read the packaging carefully to make sure it doesn't say 'winmodem' anywhere on it. Trust me, buy a non-winmodem, and you'll see your transfer speeds, online gaming speeds, and connection reliability skyrocket, since they don't offload the work onto your processor.