ADSL broadband is not available everywhere.  Special equipment must be installed at the telephone exchange and the users must be located within 5.5 kilometres of the exchange.  The speed of ADSL Internet service deteriorates the farther a home or business is located away from the telephone exchange.

ADSL is not well suited for all Internet applications. Because the ADSL "pipeline" to send data is comparatively small, Internet applications such as web conferencing, web hosting, VoIP (Internet telephony) and VPN (Virtual Private Networking) are not well suited for ADSL (but none-the-less will work).