DSL is not equal to Broadband. Though it is a status symbol.
Since cable connections were not available in my area 7 months back and my phone bills were killing me (5-6 hours online on a dial up connection would do that to anyone), I decided to go in for a DSL connection as advertised in the newspaper then. It seemed a costly alternative but I worked out that I would be saving nearly Rs. 3500/- a month on phone bills so DSL was probably worth it even at the Rs. 1000 a month I would pay not to mention the Rs. 34, 000/- installation charges. (Rs. 10, 000 down and Rs. 1, 000 in 24 installments).
Well this would give a 64 kbps line which is a wee it faster than a 56 kbps dial up modem. Now the service has its plus points and its minus points. Lets see these.
Positive Points.
Reliable connection. You get a connection that is stable. No frequent disconnections, eg. my current connection has been on for 4 hr:43 min. As you are not on the phone line you can do your offline work with the DSL on all the time.
Fairly good speed. 64 kbps is fairly good even though it is not broadband.
Adequate data transfer. For Rs. 1000 a a month I get a total of 1 GB data transfer allowed every month.
Upto 5 email addresses.
Negative points.
The tech support is horrible. The guys on the phone cannot help you at all except to note down your complain.
Initial problems. Initially their DNS servers were so bad that half the sites would not open on my computer. I was once unable to logon for 5 days at a stretch as there was some problem with the authentication server.
Conclusion. If you have a choice of DSL v/s cable in your area, I guess the two factors that might help you decide is which one works out to more economical and the quality of the cable connection. If your data transfer is more than 500-600 MB a month DSL will be cheaper. As for the reliability, cable connections are not always as fast as you might think. As the number of users increase, the bandwidth is split. With DSL you get a dedicated line. Its a question of cost as well as quality. The decision is yours and depends on your area and cable operator.