I was one of the early adopters of DSL in my old neighborhood through "the phone company" as it was a step up from my dial-up modem.... when the DSL service stayed up. We had to put inline filters on all the telephones so DSL wouldn't interfere with them, and the other way around.
Unfortunately, we were on the fringe and the service would vary from about 200Kbs to nothing. Yes, that was 200Kbs (about 4x dial-up speed). That's not even 1/4 of 1 Megabit/sec and it would fade in and out.
When cable internet came to town I jumped on it and never looked back. We started with a reliable 2 - 3Mbs and they've been increasing the speeds ever since. We stayed at around 30Mbs for a few years then they jumped it 100Mbs and now nearly 200Mbs.
Our telephone company is advertising "Gig Internet" but the only people who can get it live with about a block of their central office. I just checked my area and the best we can from them is 7Mbs which is what I was getting 10 years ago via cable.
We all hate Comcast to a certain extent and they ARE pricey, but I'm addicted to their internet which has been very reliable for us.
