Cable vs. ADSL
Distance Sensitivity
ADSL technology is distance-sensitive. The longer one's telephone line runs from their house to the phone company, the less performance they can achieve with ADSL compared to neighbors who might live closer to the public exchange.
Cable modems do not suffer from this problem – the distance between two cables modems can be dozens of kilometers and still the quality of the data will not be reduced.
Cable vs. ADSL
Distance Sensitivity