I'm just happy to have a 128 KB/s connection as opposed to the 46,600 bps that we had before. I'm about 5 km away from the DSLAM, so on the fringe of DSL availability. In a country the size of Canada, as soon as you get away from the major centres it's an expensive enterprise to lay all that cable...
Some locals have been pretty creative in getting high speed to their places. Like paying someone DSL service and installing a wireless system that beams to their places across the river (1km instead of 12 km of phone line).
Not sure of all the details but it works for them.