I just recently had a face to face with a AT&T tech.
at least for my area, for AT&T they are now starting to offer I think up to T1 speed on DSL in some areas.
How they are able to do this is fiber.
In some areas where customers are not within the normal DSL range from the main facility, they are running a fiber line to the neighbor hood and then running copper from their to the houses.
New housing around here is being equipped with phone fiber right to the house
Any new house in our area that has fiber to it can get DSL speeds that way exceed ANYTHING cable will ever be able to offer.
So I would check your area, talk with technicians and find out what your area has to offer as far as fiber goes and what future growth towards fiber is expected.
If fiber isn't an option then it will depend on how far you are from the main facility. The closer you are, the fast speeds they can offer, the father, the less they can offer on copper.
If you can get 3mb or more download on DSL, then the only way you are really going to notice it is when downloading files. Just web browsing by itself there will probably not be much of noticeable difference.
If you however spend most of your day downloading and uploading files, then yes every lit bit of speed you can get counts.
Another thing to consider is when you are on Cable you are basically on the same connection as everyone else in your neighborhood. If you have any hackers in your neighbor hood it provides them a challenge and provides you with a hug security risk.
While you can take steps to mitigate your risk such as firewalls (hard and soft) it is still a risk that is not inherent in DSL.
Bottom line, check and see what your max DSL speed is for you area, ask specifically about fiber optics to your home then based on that determine what your needs are and determine the risks you are willing to accept and risks you are not willing to accept
i.e if you are just a home user browsing the internet not too much risk in getting hack over cable, however if you are running a business, do stock trading on line, do a lot of banking online your potential for adverse affects from being hacked over cable have increased and need to include calculation when performing a risk assessment on your home network.
Then make you full determination after performing a proper analysis comparing risk assessment, mitigation steps available and network performance needs
Good luck
