My problem was my internet (WIFI) was stupidly slow. It would only really work when I turned my WIfi off and it returned to normal speed. I never had the issue of being online and then dropping off, I just had really really slow internet with wifi on.
I posted the above as soon as I finished the call and I suppose I have been online without any issues for 20-30 mins. Everything seems super fast now.
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9), automatically disable wireless when