dial up goes dead altho it says its still connected

i've had this annoying problem ever since i upgraded to xp. my 56k
dial up will be working fine, then suddenly web pages wont load, "page
cannot be found", can't get email because 'server not found' etc. its
not an IE issue as this affects *all* internet programs, including
email and ftp. so i hit disconnect and reconnect. another strange
thing is that sometimes i'll go to a page with lots of pictures, but
the pics only get halfway loaded, then it says 'done' at the bottom.
anyone else have this problem?

d.