I have the same symptoms - connection repeatedly dropping under heavy download (downloading simultaneously from news groups and BitTorrents).
I live in Leicester (LE3) and have a silver ntl:home 100 modem. I recently upgraded from 3mb to 10mb and the problem has been occuring since then. I get around 1100k/s flat out.
I've sent a PM to Russ D answering his questions.
Cheers,
BD
PS. This is my first post
