Further to my last post, here is another snippet of conversation with some far-off ISP tech support guy, again named Sam:

I explain to Sam that I was connected to the Internet, then the connection suddenly dropped. As a precaution, I shut down the modem, rebooted the computer and restarted the modem.

He seemed to be inputting my output.

Then, not 10 seconds later, Sam asks: "Have you tried shutting down the modem and restarting the computer?"

Aggghhh!!!