How much does having a 7Mbp/s line over a 1Mbp/s line matter to the majority of broadband users? How much does one service have over another? An interesting article talks about just that, and brings to light how different the utilization and time consumed becomes between "low speed" broadband and "high speed" broadband. For instance, the difference between the speed of a 1MB web page loading on a 6MBP/s line versus one five times as fast is just a tad over one second. Pretty much all broadband providers offer their services on the speed selling point alone.

"What this shows is that as we increase the speed, the real impact of the speed on what we do with it is marginal. Can your eyes tell the difference between a web-page loading in one second or 0.27 seconds."
There are a few things the article doesn't take into account, such as the impatience of the average net user. I've found wonderful use for my 7Mbp/s line at home, especially when I download large files on a daily basis. The article makes some good points, however, and is worth a read.