HTC Hero :: "Slow" Internet Symptom / Way To Fix?

I'm finding that when I browse to a webpage on any site, using the default Hero browser, that most of the time the progress bar sticks at about 10% for a good few seconds (say 5-10) and then either starts loading the page, or fails with a "page not found" type page. It does it on many different types of websites (small simple ones and big complicated ones). It does it whether I'm on wi-fi or out and about (er, GSM is it?). The Market app is also quite slow to load the first bit of data. I am on Vodafone, and have already turned off their "Content Control". I have a horrible feeling that it'll still be checking with their server before downloading a page. Anybody else see this pause at 10% progress in the browser?