BT have introduced "MaxDSL" services which give "up to 8M" depending on line conditions. These services are "rate adaptive" which means the speed achieved by the modem depends on the line condition - a good short line will achieve 8128 kbit/s downstream and the longest poorest line will either drop to 160 kbits/s or fail to connect. In general this means people are getting faster speeds with Max than before, as the previous limits were conservative.

Not all ISPs are offerring MaxDSL services as yet. Those that are have experienced some ups and downs both with individual customers lines and with their systems as a whole - giving the users 3 times the bandwidth has caused some bottlenecks at exchanges and ISPs. Individual users that have in the past had rock solid lines are now finding that the target SNR margin of 6 dB gives them lots of speed but perhaps lots of errors and disconnections as well.

More explanations of the Max service coming soon. Meanwhile you can read the results of an early-adopter survey which shows most people getting high modem speeds but somewhat disappointing data throughputs.