Holy crap - some of the advice here is hilarious. OP: When the internet appears to freeze, are you able to log into the router? If so you could check the status and logs and see what's going on.
wired or wireless? with USB or not? are you planning to use it with P2P? belkin works fine for me. very user friendly. i have one for 5 years-died, bought another one and pretty happy with it. this one is also good- http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1173272&CatId=198
Update: I downloaded a firmware update, which also had me reset the router to factory settings. So now the router has the latest firmware update and it did a complete reboot. Running good so far, but we'll see. If this doesn't do the trick, going to order a new one.
Knock on wood - after firmware update and resetting to original settings, seems to be ok. Let's hope.