Connectivity issues resolved
The irregular disconnection troubles our DSL modem was having seem to have been fixed by something our local utility company did on Friday — everything is working as well as it can, at this point, though the site is still hampered by a lack of bandwidth.
Update: scratch that — the DSL modem was the problem. Aren’t you glad I’ve told you all this? Thanks to Casey at Speakeasy.net for helping clear this up.