Yeah - I was gonna say.... ;~)
I heard something interesting from the phone guy who came to check our fax line, that I think probably affects DSL. He said the phone switch boxes all have electronics in them now, that are powered by battery. So while the phone may work for awhile, it may eventually go dead. Systems like DSL may require that those switchboxes have power, even though the phone still works. I dunno. He said that they were going around in areas that were still dark and recharging those batteries from their trucks, to keep the phone lines working.
It probably wasn't always that way, in the old days, maybe there wasn't so much added complexity in the system to require electronics, and that made the phones more reliable.
The additional electronics are probably all the digital switching gear. The old analog stuff would've been just more mechanical and the low voltage phone signal was all it needed. Now they got 'puter chips to do it all.