ESR had actually posted about this particular issue not too long ago and was looking for assistance with the 'Bufferbloat' project. Not my area of expertise, so I don't think I would be able to do much, but I thought this might be worth mentioning.

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4171

http://www.bufferbloat.net/

For an explanation of buffer bloat in layman's terms: http://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/bloat/wiki/Introduction

As usual, http://lwn.net has had good coverage and comments on the topic. (A search on "Bufferbloat site:lwn.net" will get them.)