Yes download times vary from internet service provider, and ignore the not connected message, your download will resume. Obviously the faster the connection you have the quicker it will download. As you know many factors impact download performance.
I think you missed the point of my post. I understand that you pay for 4X faster downloads than I do. And with everything BUT VOD you are getting 4X faster downloads than I do. However your 45 minutes to download a 2 hour program is 37.33X faster than my 28 hours to download a 2 hour program (7 hours for a 30 min X4). I can download software, music, video, and pictures at expected speeds, but not D*'s VOD... Those downloads are MUCH slower than they should be. And I have cable and the tech said I have one of the best signals he has seen in a while, and the system is designed to handle like 15mbps per subscriber, so my measly 1.5 mbps is not getting bogged down anywhere on my end.
Also I can't ignore the error message unless I want to have 1/5 of my screen blocked by it. I must clear it to watch TV. It pops up every 30 to 45 seconds so this gets annoying.