My computer is on the second story of this house. My step-dad's computer and our modem/wired router are in our basement. The way I'm connected up here to that thing is a cord going out a basement window, up the side of our house and in through my window, connecting to my computer. I know that the longer the cable and the higher the speed is, the connection becomes less stable. Also, the cord going outside is a big bad sign for moisture, corrosion and the like.

The both of us used to get bumped off all the time with our router but with this upgrade, I'm even getting sudden connection death without the router plugged up, going straight to the modem. He doesn't seem to get bumped off in this way. Also, I don't think we're at a great spot to have DSL geographically, as we're not directly over phone cables or anything. Our connection seems to peak in my upstairs at 400 kb/s even though the supposed speed is 600 kb/s.

Is this right? If so, should I A) move the modem to the first floor and find ways to plug us both in that way or just move my computer to the basement?

Or get a better cable and shield it somehow. I regularly use ethernet cables in my house with lengths of 50' and 100' and don't experience any kind of slowdown.

Well it could be a geographical thing too, the technician who came to my house said. I may not even be in a great place to have DSL. The only reason I seem to be getting cut off here with a straight connection to the modem is because we upgraded the connection; that's when it all started.