Hi,
I recently swapped from Virgin to Sky, under the illusion that the Max package would give me speeds between 8 and 16mbps.Unfortunately I only get 4mbps. My house is roughly 2.5 klm from the nearest exchange system, but it is not in a striaght line, and environmental factors can also influence your speed. I suggest you go onto "samknows.co.uk" - they will be able to give you an estimate of potential download speed. I am sorry I switched to Sky - as I am having to fork out for a news server, as Sky don't have one.
Hope this helps
Julie