I also have the pro pak and not very happy. I to have the same problems you are having. I am on Syracuse beam 35. I keep getting a low connectivity MSG. my download speed seem to be alrigh but the upload sucks. And my pages load very slow alot of the times.
I was having trouble with my upload speed: I was getting less than have my advertised speed.
I found that when I turned off the worm protection in my Nortons anti virus, it give me back full advertised speed!
I went from 95 kbps to over 250.
:::.. Upload Stats ..:::
Connection is:: 183 Kbps about 0.2 Mbps (tested with 2992 kB)
Upload Speed is:: 22 kB/s
Tested From:: https://testmy.net (server2)
Test Time:: Sun Jan 29 16:37:11 CST 2006
Bottom Line:: 3X faster than 56K 1MB upload in 46.55 sec
Diagnosis: Awesome! 20% + : 64.86 % faster than the average for host (80.38)
Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-PCE5GZISM
this is the test using your suggestions thanks to all for the help!