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I work on a support desk for a company that resells ADSL as part of a package. The following is what you have to go through when the line goes down:

Reboot router
Check DSL cable
(the obvious and ok stuff)

if not fixed:

Get ISP to run line test, if no obvious line fault the customer will need to do do the following:

Check to see if they can get a dial tone on the line
Check and run a "quiet line test"
Remove face plate and plug ADSL cable directly in to the "master" socket
Replace ADSL filter
Replace router

If this fails to fix it, arrange for telecoms engineer to go on site...

All this for a service that is mission critical for a most businesses. Is fibre more reliable, as ADSL seems to be a very flaky technology?

When I used to support an iSDN product troubleshooting used to be the following:

Can you get a dial tone?
No?
Get line fixed

On the rare occasion it wasn't the line, replace iSDN card

When I lived in Reading I had BT Infinity, which is an optic fibre cable service, and it worked reliably and was very fast.

The fibre I had in Japan was even better.

Now I am in Henley, I am back on ADSL because BT won't get around to upgrading the local network for several years. In theory I can get up to 22mbps download, but in practice it is often only 3 to 4 mbps.

The worst thing is the semi-random dropouts of the service, which have got a lot worse recently. In fact I am logging them, to see if there is a pattern.

One thing I will look at is the channel setting of my router. The auto-select seems to select the most crowded channel, so last year I reset myself to an empty channel.However there are now about 20 WiFi routers within range of my computer, so it is almost inevitable that there is some overlap.

I got DSL via Covad back when I lived in NYC and they were just starting out. This must be at least 15 or 18 years ago. My many adventures with getting it installed and working and then how it worked thereafter convinced me that DSL was for donkey-caves and switched to cable, when it was available. I have seen nothing in the subsequent timeframe to change my mind on that.

Cable modems is the best.

I've never had problems with mine... although, you do "pay" for it as it's generally more expensive than DSL.

I have to support some ADSL lines, and BT (it always ends up with BT) are terrible at their part.
My home line has had a replacement router, and we still get trouble.
Go for anything other than 'copper' ADSL, involving microfilters. It's a cheap and convenient way to use existing cabling, but it's a fudge.

As for Wifi channels, people shouldn't be able to change them themselves. Phone apps like WiEye show that Wifi does not use just a single channel. Each channel is the centre of a range or 5-7, and any kit using non-standard channels overlaps causing sometimes horrific problems. It's better to 'interfere' if the signal strength is clear enough, as the networks will cater for each other.

I'm on ADSL.

There was a dream where we were supposed to get fibre-optic cable and r"eally fast high speed internets" for a while, but the current government put it into the "too hard" basket and cancelled it - except for new suburban developments where it's part of the infrastructure like the sewer and power lines.

Haven't had an issue with our ADSL that the helpdesk hasn't been able to fix (their end OR my end).