Can we therefore say that your PC was "hung (up) by its own modem?"

I have seen some pretty dumb program fee-churs, but yours sounds particularly ironic. Inasmuch as my roommate is thinking of switching to AVG, I'll have to warn him. [I also have no idea what it will do if a broadband "always-on" connection is detected instead. Turn cartwheels on the Net? :-/]