make sure you have opened ports 6881-6889...
do a google search for the specifics... it depends on whether you are connected to the wall or through a router...
but opening those ports does speed things up.
make sure you are waiting a while for the torrent to speed up. bittorrent works in a complicated way that lets you download faster as you've uploaded more... for me it takes about 5 min to get to me meager top speed (28KB/s)
if you know how to use your resources and you've got like a 3mbit/s line you are a lucky man/woman... i've heard from my cousin-in-law that when he downloads via bittorrent he can get up to about 350 KB/s - 400 KB/s

is appropriate
reality