2733k/528k on Verizon's 3000k/640k DSL package. About average.
As Gadget_Lover alluded to, there are many many factors that effect internet throughput. The "package" bandwidth of the pipe bewteen the ISP and you isn't always the most signifigant factor. There are routing issues, backbone bandwidth utilization, and oversubscription of bandwidth at the ISP in addition to load at the far end.
Here's a simplified network diagram for a home broadband ISP:
This is a simplistic diagram, but note how many routers are between you and just the internet
backbone where you will likely see >50% of the "hops" in any given route. Every point beyond the CPE router is also a concentrator of sorts - likely with dozens of devices similar to the "downstream" device connected. As such, there's the potential for congestion at every point. This diagram is simplified in that it doesn't show what's likely to be a number of switches between routers; switches work faster than routers and typically make up much of the mesh within any given "segment," but they can get congested as well.
To some extent, an ISP can offer better service by upping access speeds and reducing oversubscription, but that costs money and just pushes the bottleneck further into their network. Given that the average home broadband user averages < 5% overall utilization - mostly bursting for short periods - the oversubscription model makes sense ... unless you get customers working from home or leaving their computers on and consuming bandwidth instead of the "traditional" usage in the morning and evening.
'Used to be that cable networks were sort of like giant ethernet networks with that quoted "3 megabits" shared by a disturbingly large number of customers. DSL wsn't much better - it was common for early DSLAMs (DSL Access Multiplexer) to serve ~1000 customers with a single DS1 (1.544Mb) line connecting to the ISP. Needless to say both networking standards bogged down quickly as the subscriber base started to build up.
Cable networks have gotten much more sophistocated with segmentation and substantially greater bandwidth on the backend; DSL technology has gotten better and newer DSLAMs don't have such a massive ovsersubscription rate. Backend bandwidth is also getting cheaper. OC-3 (~155Mb) and OC-12 (~622Mb) have gone from backbone links to access trunks, and prices have come down on ATM switches and ports/interfaces for even bigger pipes (OC-48 & OC-192). The nominal "line" or "package" rates are starting to mean something for the average home broadband user, although SLAs (Service Level Agreements) are still next to nothing...
Remember folks, this "internet" thing is still kind of new.
