One of the speed limitations with browsers is the number of simultaneous connections they make to the web server. On modem connections this limitation makes sense, but on broadband connections why do you need the limit so low.

The good news is there are ways to increase this limit and let your browser request more items at once.

For IE you can download IE Toys from Bayden Systems.
For Firefox you can download Fasterfox from the Mozilla site.

Your browser doesn't actually run any faster but because the contents of the page arrive sooner the data loads quicker and you get a better overall experience. Nice :-)

P.S. IE Toys has a number of other features you may find useful such as right click options to do dictionary look ups of words, or kick off Google searches from the selected text, etc. It's worth a look.