Can slow interent be a sign of a modem going bad?

[Tharn]

Sometimes when a line is faulty, an ISP will artificially throttle that line to keep it stable. This can happen, for example, if your modem has 'gone bad' and starts throwing up errors and losing packets. They'll see the bad stats on the other end. Now that you have a new modem, you could ask them to plug you into a different line and see if that helps. You should be able to request this on a hunch - it's no trouble for the ISP to do.

I've had to to it once after lightning struck here. Power lines in the house are old and very sensitive. Lightbulbs break easily and a little spike is enough to kill or permanently damage a modem.