mine seems shocking compared to others, have no idea what it all means though!

Looks to me like your on adsl 1 and pretty close to your local exchange,the fastest you will get on adsl 1 is 7.5mbps down and 0.448 upload,if you contact your service provider and ask to go on adsl 2, 21cn your speeds will more than double.
thank you very much but whaaaaaaaaaat?!? 
just so i can at least pretend what im talking about, what is adsl 1? and what is adsl 2 that im asking to be put on? will it be free?
Asymmetric digital subscriber line basically means its faster in one direction,hence download of 8mbs and upload of 0.48,ask your service provider if your exchange has been upgraded to 21cn which means they have put the new ADSL 2 equipment in the exchange which is capable of upto 24Mbps download and 1Mbps upload.It should not cost anymore but they will probably want you to,sign a new contract.