TCP experts - improving dial-up performance?

[Shawn C. Powell]

Hi All,

Yeah, so I have dial-up.  Stop laughing. :) 

I would like some advice on making the best of my slow dial-up connection.  

The behavour I observe when downloading files (http get and ftp both) is:
	a) Download holds steady for some seconds, say about 30
	b) Rate stumbles, falling to zero for a few seconds
	c) Rate shoots up to 4 or five times nominal
	d) Rate declines back to nominal over a few seconds
	e) repeat from a)

A wireshark capture, if I am interpreting correctly, reveals that the window ( 
this is the TCP congestion window cgwnd?) increases during (a), whereupon at 
(b) a segment or two gets dropped, dup ACKS and retransmissions ensue (some 
which seem to me to be unnecessary), the window is shortened, progress resumes 
as normal for awhile, then the whole cycle repeats.

So I imagine that packets from the high-speed sender are piling up somewhere 
in the path until eventually a buffer gets exceeded and a packet gets dropped.

Am I reading the situation correctly?  Is there any way I encourage the other 
end of the link to throttle back?

Thanks for any comments and education.  And really, stop laughing!

-Shawn