Why in the US is ADSL not more prevalent? The Australian broadband sector is very competitive and generally (unless you are very rural), there are hundreds of companies competing for your business. As a result, prices have consistently come down over time (when I first got ADSL in 2004 I got 1GB of data at 256kbps for $50 (1)), now the same buys unlimited data at the fastest my phone line will allow (14MBit)*. There are also no slowdowns during peak periods - providers ensure sufficiant bandwidth is available. It seems strange to me that the US is apparently locked into cable internet where only one or two providers service entire cities.

(1) This is still fairly expensive but it is primarily because the majority of traffic is international and must come through fairly limited bandwidth undersea pipes. I would imagine the majority of traffic in the US is local and therefore cheaper.