I had a chuckle at the 3.5Mbps that the wet string was getting in the article. When I first moved in to this house, I was getting around 3Mbps on ADSL. Thankfully now I'm on 100Mbps fibre (not amazing by global standards, but good by Australian standards).

That wet string would have been an upgrade for me.

Knew you were from Australia as soon as you mentioned your old speed.

100Mbps isn't great for fibre. I'm on 100Mbps just on plain old HFC.

BT have left a large number of people on ADSL. No VDSL upgrade.

it's the UK average for urban ADSL. and those many places are where the FTTH startups are springing up