In Melbourne I never experienced sustained speeds of below 9Mbps on ADSL2+ in two locations, normally 11–12Mbps.
But if you want a fast, stable Internet connection, move out into a small country town with a 4G tower (doesn’t need to be NBN). There’s much less congestion. Look around for plans, as most are expensive; I use amaysim’s 50GB/$65/28 days which is about what ADSL2+ would be in the country. Living in Stawell (a few thousand people) I get 20–25/12Mbps with greater reliability than I ever got on ADSL2+. I shall be moving to Navarre soon (~100 people) and get 45/15Mbps there.
If you can live with the data cap, that's great. Otherwise, 50gb is pretty low for work (remote conferences, download some system images, upgrade your mac and you're done).
Another issue in small towns is that the moment a new tower needs to go up, there may be a low of community pushback (radiation! kids!). It's much better if the current one gets an upgrade.
Small towns in Australia tend to be a lot less paranoid about technology than an equivalent sized town in the USA. Comes from being really remote (think 100+Km to the next centre), having to fight for any services at all and a long history of using telecommunication technology to make life better. Think School of the Air using HF radios to provide education to remote children.
