I've been using my cellphone as a model (long story) and trying to find some ways to make the web even a little faster... here's my tips:

1) Low cost proxy acceleration services

"Propel Accelerator" that really works for me - the net is about 20x times faster and just costs $5 / month. Only works for dial-ups/mobile phones as modems.

http://www.propel.com/

The main idea is that it works as a proxy and my comp only communicates with Propel server that compress all gifs/jpegs/htmls. Well, the trade-off is that the pics look bad if I set the compression level too high, butI'm so used to fast surfing that I don't mind too much. Works with text pages as well, since it sends them gzipped if they aren't already (all PeachyForum pages are zipped, so they should load fast even without accelerators).

2) Google Accelerator

http://webaccelerator.google.com/

It currently says "36 min saved" so I guess it's doing something... dunno if it's needed when I use Propel, or if it's just slowing things down. Mainly for broadband connections, so I might try it again when I get my adsl back online.

3) ...and some other programs

Since the downloads are so slow for files & lines are unstable, I've started to use proggies that allow continuing where I've left... haven't got any favorites yet, so cannot recommend any.

Other things to consider are some programs that are installed on your computer and that check if the pages you're asking have been updated... if not, they will offer a cached version. There are some programs that even start downloading the pages your current one is linking to and therefore will speed up loading if you'll click the link but haven't tried them yet.