You never notice how agnoying a dial-up modem is until you switch to broadband. Well of course it still does your head in, but once you see what you could be using then it makes you feel like crying.
In the year or so I've been using Blueyonder it's gone down about 3 times. Once they deleted my account because we hadn't paid... then they found out we had and connected me straight back up. Took about 10 minutes.
I run my machine as a server now due to the fact I don't trust any web space providers with my sites. Sites run fast and no one has had any problems. I still get it for £30 a month but hey, it's well worth it believe me.
I couldn't honestly go back to a dial-up. Cable isn't exactly T3 but it's the closest you'll get in your home.