On the matter of DSL

Do any of the assembled sages have experience with the functional difference between 3 Mbps and 768 Kbps service to the person sitting in front of the screen? I don't anticipate a great appetite for streaming video here, or other really intensive surfing stuff, and ten bucks a month difference adds up.

Also, we're dealing with longish runs of cheap phone wiring to reach the household computer center, and I wonder how fast our antiquated infrastructure will propagate those bits and bytes.