The further you are away from the BT Exchange the slower the broadband is.
Round here where I have my broadband (Small town in the country) I get 2Mb but one of my friends who lives in a village only gets about 1mb as he is about 3-4 miles from the exchange.
Unfortunatly BT is the weak link and not much anyone can do about it.
IC24 should be able to provide me with 8mb for the same price but cannot as lines can only cope with 5, but I can still only recieve 2mbs even though my service has been upgraded.
Its ok if you live in a City!!