Cable suffers from major packet loss no matter where you are. Going further away from the cable provider's local switch will make it even worse. Distance is ALWAYS a factor. Also, the speeds are capped much lower than the max so that when a few people do log on you don't notice the difference. If they uncapped the speed you'd probably be going 3-4 times faster until a few people logged on, then you'd be going how fast you are now.
DSL your speed doesn't get chopped every time someone else logs on. That's why it's dedicated, you go straight to the server and don't share your bandwidth with people. It also doesn't suffer from packet loss nearly as bad. Also, if the phone company says DSL is available, then they have installed a switch within the max distance from your house, so you needn't worry about that. The onyl downside to DSL is it usually isn't offered at as high a max speed as cable unless you pay more.
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