ADSL2+ Faster? or not?

ADSL2+ is being touted as the next generation Internet connection and claims people could be enjoying speeds of up to 24mb. To benefit from 24mb connection speeds forcast it's thought that you'll probably need to either live right on top of your local exchange or certainly within 400 meters of it. It's also thought that 8mb is going to be more that sufficient for most consumers and will be adequate for the proposed broadband TV and other bandwidth draining applications.

There's been a flury of broadband related news stories on the BBC technology site of late:

High-speed net could disappoint
Full speed ahead for broadband
Pipex deal to speed up broadband