The maximum speed you can get from DSL is dependent on several things: the distance from your provider’s connection (usually, a box called a DSLAM in the telephone company central office), the quality of the line itself, and the price you pay if your provider offers different speeds. Most of the internet, and most browsers, can’t run much above 600K, so speeds above that pay off mostly for shared offices.

The actual speed you get is enormously affected also by the quality of your provider’s connection to the internet (routers, backbone). We expect to have more data about real world quality of service soon. Here are some typical numbers - all remarkably faster than the 56K of an analog modem.

Distance  (feet)	Downstream (receive)	Upstream (send)
8000	7.1 meg	90k
8000	1.5 meg	1.5 meg
12000	1.5 meg	90k
12000	1 meg	1 meg
18000	640k	90k
18000	256k	256k
Unlimited	144k	144k