In case I haven't mentioned it before, if you want to get an idea of all of the options that may be available in your neighborhood, check out http://www.dslreports.com I haven't used it in awhile, but you used to be able to plug in your home address or (non-internet) phone number and find out what services are available. I hear Verizon FIOS (fiber) is worth looking into if you can get it, but I doubt it's available anywhere in Western Mass. For the original problem that was described of parts of web pages not loading, I would tend to suspect the web browser software, "internet acceleration" software or firewall rather than the cable service itself. The cable should just be providing a TCP/IP connection, it shouldn't care what is contained within the stream of data. However, some ISPs have been known to sneak a "web cache" into a connection and force all traffic to port 80 to go through there (this is to conserve bandwidth on their "back end" and peer connections to other ISPs). As for cable modem, the cable modem that you have can make a lot of difference, especially if it is an older unit that uses old standards. I recommend Motorola SurfBoard or at least something that is "DOCSIS 2.0 Certified". As for Verizon, my experience is the DSL modems they give out are cheap junk and at some point start flaking out on people. You can hound Verizon until they send you a replacement cheap junk, or just bite the bullet and try to get something better yourself. However, it's hard to find ADSL modems that you can buy as a regular consumer. The Zyxel Zoom X5 or X6 are sometimes available at places like Staples or CompUSA, I know a couple people who have replaced Westell units from Verizon with the X5 and had very good results. For DNS problems such as on Comcast, some firewall / router can be set up to work as a "caching DNS". If you have a Linux box, Mac, or Windows Server, it might not be too hard to set up a caching DNS on there as well. As for DHCP problems on Comcast, you could look into getting a static IP then set up your cable modem with a "static" address accordingly, but I have no idea how much Comcast charges for that, or if it is even available for other than business accounts. Jonathan