The one thing not mentioned in any detail here, that is a known problem that we've seen with dial-up in the US, is primarily a matter of traffic at the ISP point.

Back in the early days ... of our use of dialup, we had frequent "drops" similar to what has been described. We found that when too many people tried to hook up to the same "phone number" the ISP would automatically disconnect the one that had been "inactive" the longest. Unfortunately, they seemed to judge activity based only on whether you hit "submit" (Enter) occasionally, so they did not see a long download as "an activity." We became quite accustomed to redialing - without changing where the page was pointed - and learned that most times the download would pick up the connection and continue the download.

It will likely be nearly impossible to get an ISP to admit this happens; but if there is any choice of the 'phone numbers you can dial up to make the connection, using a different one offers the scant possibility that you can find one that the bulk of the users haven't discovered yet. Where there's a choice of numbers, telling all your "friends" what good results you get with the one that doesn't work is probably a little unsporting, but actually has been known to help.... or you can tell them all "there's this new number" and maybe enough will leave the one you're using...

We still get an occasional "drop," but nothing like it used to be. And our ISP still won't admit there's a problem; but changing the dial-up number was an immediate improvement.

John