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Just in case you need a way to determine where the bottleneck in an active connection is you could use a relatively new tool included in Windows 7 or higher. If you run XP you can download it from the MS website.
It is called "pathping" and if you run it from a DOS Shell (CMD) it basically traces the route from your originating PC to the destination you experience a problem with. After the trace is complete it computes statistics about the connection and pronts the results in the DOS shell. A self explanatory example is below.

C:\Users\XYZ>pathping http://www.google.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Tracing route to http://www.google.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; [63.96.4.55]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
0 kswinpc.local [10.10.100.116]
1 CISCO46277 [10.10.100.1]
2 192.168.168.1
3 lo0-100.DLLSTX-VFTTP-308.verizon-gni.net [71.252.138.1]
4 T0-6-0-3.DLLSTX-LCR-22.verizon-gni.net [130.81.168.76]
5 * * *
Computing statistics for 100 seconds...
Source to Here This Node/Link
Hop RTT Lost/Sent = Pct Lost/Sent = Pct Address
0 XYZ.local [10.10.100.116]
0/ 100 = 0% |
1 0ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% CISCO46277 [10.10.100.1]
0/ 100 = 0% |
2 1ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 192.168.168.1
0/ 100 = 0% |
3 8ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% lo0-100.DLLSTX-VFTTP-308.verizon-
ni.net [71.252.138.1]
0/ 100 = 0% |
4 9ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% T0-6-0-3.DLLSTX-LCR-22.verizon-gn
.net [130.81.168.76]

Trace complete.
C:\Users\XYZ>

My best experience is a CISCO/ Linksys EA4500 with the latest Firmware. QoS and link recovery works with those models. For the issue yiu have with your uplink you may also want to look at eventual problems with in-house cables and or provider issues. Logging features of whatever device you use may be a help too.