Does Firefox have a connection timer I can increase to get around a large file download problem?

I am failing to get a long file downloaded because (I believe) of a slow connection. The error I get is "The Operation timed out". For Internet Explorer the suggestion is to increase the Keep/Alive timer value and also the one for the server. This involves inserting these values in the Windows registry. I am wondering if Firefox has the equivalent? I am using version 7.0.1 of Firefox.