hey guys i am really confused about this concept

ort forwarding and am not able to detect whether i have this feature enabled or not.
i am using XPsp2 & bitcomet 0.96 and on dataone home 500 plan(2.5GB limit)
i went through a lot of articles on the net on increasing p2p speeds.so i configured my settings accordingly.i changed the upload and download rates and maximum half rate connections etc.but when i came on to this concept of port forwarding,i just could'nt make anything out of it.Can some1 plz xplain me what it is in simple terms.so from whatevr little i understood,when i tried to connect to my
router using my my default gateway(59.93.128.xx-which is also my ip address.) to check whether port forwarding is enabled or not,no page was opened in the web browser.
i also checked with 192.168.1.1 & 192.168.0.1
i found these sumwhere on the net.
Some1 plz temme how to check it and how.i am using a UTStarCom UT300R2U modem/router.
as an interesting fact from the net,i checked up my peers list in the downloading torrent list.i was downloading 2 files.the whole list of download no1 showed all local connections where as the list of download no2 had a mixture of both local and remote.
so do i have port forwarding enabled or not???
and does resetting the router help in any way??
and ya with all local connections.....i get upto 225 kBps speeds for torrents.
so do i have port forwarding option enabled ?????
and if it is not will enabling it increase my speeds significantly???