For many users (especially your average home/family users with less technical requirements, not using it for critical purposes such as home working) they're probably perfectly adequate.
FWIW, I use BT's (formerly British Telecom) FTTC Infinity for Business product. 78Mbps down, 20Mbps up, worst case 1:20 contention, no caps or allowance-related FUP. Their customer care and technical teams are pretty decent. And I can get a /29 in addition to the dynamic PPP IP for the WAN link. Where I am (NE Scotland), BT own all of the widely available (non-private) infrastructure so it's easier to deal with a single company in the event of a failure vs being pushed between ISP and infrastructure provider. YMMV.
EDIT: FYI I pay £45 ex VAT (~AUD 102).