[scarface74]

I stayed with my parents for a summer (long story) and worked remotely - it was painful. I could barely do video conferencing let alone upload and download large datasets fast over DSL. I ended up setting up a VM on AWS to work from.

But on a less anecdotal note, legitimate companies are doing “rural sourcing” of call centers where everyone works remotely and they give you a special boot disk that only runs thier software. They pay better than minimum wage and the requirement is a decent - above DSL internet connection.

[ghaff]

My dad in Maine is the last house that can get DSL on a private road. Internet "works" but you can't do video or anything like that. One neighbor I know has a hot spot through Verizon though mobile signal isn't great either. I believe some others have satellite. If I had to work from there, I'd have to do something to supplement the DSL.

[smileysteve]

visiting in rural Alabama, up to last year AT&T DSL was the only option. The speed wasn't the problem so much as 2 simultaneous connections (ie browser and video conference) would kill the connection.