Just check modem ADSL status, that will have the link speed mentioned.
During certain hours there will be ups and downs. I am still on 2mbps.
When it comes to torrents, it depends on how many peers you are connected to and how many of them are actually fast uploaders.
When using azureus make sure you make max no of peers/ torrent to unlimited rather than default 50.
I am still getting good speeds on torrents.
Also keep in mind torrents may not give constant speeds or max capable speeds of your connection. The best thing to do is run 2 simultaneous downloads. That way you get pretty close to your connection limit.