Very true. I'm on "Superfast" broadband in the UK. That means 16Mbps down, 1.3Mbps up.
The only way to get 10Mbps up is to be on fibre-to-the-premises. And even then only if you live in one of the blessed areas.
ADSL supports up to 24Mbps down in the UK - assuming that you're (very) close to the exchange. I could theoretically get that with my old ISP, were I not 1.6km from the exchange.
Cable supports up to 100Mbs down (at least I'm pretty sure that Virgin has started to roll that out, if not then 50Mbs), though contention might be an issue at peak times.
I've got BT Infinity, which is fibre to the cabinet rather than all the way to the home. Since the distance to the cabinet is likely to be pretty minimal you can get pretty high bandwidth over the last length of telephone wire. For reference, I get 76Mbs down and 20+Mbs up - more than fast enough for plently of thing to feel instant, such as downloading movies which now takes in the order of minutes.
