Here at home I connect to the net in two ways, 2-way satalite connection 512/128kbits (but this has poor ping as the signal travels into space and back
giving generally in the order of 800ms to the first terestrial point, so no good for games, I use it for just for general web stuff), the other connection I have is ISDN 128/128kbits which gives ping to my provider 55-60ms and to most Euro LFS servers 450-500ms, US servers 350-400ms, Asia servers 250-350ms and Aussie servers 90-150ms.
I live in the outback of Australia so have little options in what I can do
, I've only just come off an analog modem in which I could only get 28.8kbits.
In talking to the local telco tech though in the not too distant future (maybe a year) ADSL will be possible in remote areas as they are in testing for these sevices now, up until recently you had to be reasonably close to the local exchange to get ADSL. What suprised me was that the distance factor isn't that much of a problem for the data component of ADSL but is a problem for voice, and that's what they are working on at the moment.
So if you live in a remote area and your local exchange is 10-20km away it may be possible to get ADSL on a second line if its data only, this is something a telco wouldn't recommend though and you will have to convince them to do it and take the risk on yourself (i.e. if it didn't work well, tough tities)