Steam never did get in any big hurries with downloads.
steam always downloads at between 600-800 kBps with peaks of 1 megabyte/sec for me.
I have never I repeat NEVER gotten over 300kbps on steam. My max speed is 900kbps.
BTW what or who is on the photo in your sig?
It's a photo of Joy Division, a band that was active from about '77 to '80.