Yes the site you are downloading from has a big impact on how quickly you will transfer information. What you are referring to most likely, when it seems like your connection is going great then dies is mostly likely caused by your modem. You may be connected at 53333 then a wave of noise may come over the line and it will cause your modem to "retrain" and basically drop your current connection and try and get a better or more stable connection. I've seen people be connected at a v.90 standard(which is the fastest) then retrain and drop down to v.34 standard which is 33.6 or lower, which can obviously cause noticible speed changes. Also, Winmodems are alot more likely to be affected by line conditions etc and therefore retrain and drop connections more often. You definitely want to get a hardware modem if possible. [sig]<p>Ladin<br><a href=mailto:matchu_14@hotmail.com>matchu_14@hotmail.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>Tech support for 1 1/2 years, build computers, messed with C, HTML, Working on Flash, Role-Playing Game Junkie (Diablo2)[/sig]