Hi Isibee,
I'm in Quebec with Sympatico also. Ironic that Sympatico promotes/suggests customers to use D-Link routers yet they completely refuse to help you configure. As soon as you mention that you have a router to 310-SMURF guys, they will stop all support. Are you sure Sympatico assigned you an IP ? Rarely does Sympatico give fixed IP for residential and even for small commercial. You probably have a PPPoe connection. If so, you should have a username b1xxxxxx and a PW. Are you using Access manager (for win 9x, me and 2000) or are you using the PPPOE manager within XP ? Either way. Plug your modem to the wall telephone jack, then plug the lan cable between your NIC and the modem. Create your connection either through XP or Access manager. Make sure Internet is working. Then disconnect your network cable between the modem and your PC. Connect 1 lan cable between the modem and the WAN port on the router. Then connect another cable between the PC and one of the LAN ports on the router. Log into the web based wizard of your router, select PPPoe type connection, re-enter the info (username and password) as you did when you had created your connection (I think it's case sensitive, can't remember). There should be a status page to indicate if you are connected or not. If it shows that the router is connected, then you should be able to browse the Internet.
I've been using Linksys router and Sympatico for 3 years at least without any problems. D-Link (recommended by Sympatico), Linksys, Netgear, Linksys Everywhere all work with Sympatico's modems (Nortel, SpeedStream, SpeedTouch and the newer ones). The only problem I would see is that you have a USB DSL modem. I think it might be a configuration problem.
anthony