I did some more testing and it looks like it is not the channel.
Changing any of the settings in device manager will cause the
connection to succeed. Also, if I open A browser while the automatic
startup apps/services are still firing up, I can sometimes connect to
the internet briefly and then lose the connection.
So it appears that something in the startup is hosing the connection
and updating the driver settings in the device manager re-establishes
it.
Norton AV , Zone Alarm and the LinkSys network manager are all starting
up at this time. Could one one of these be messing up the connection?
Tym.