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MaBell is still cheaper on DSL and that comes through a landline phone.
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I live way out in the sticks also, and I'm at the end of the phone line for phone service from a small town 30 miles away.
My next door neighbor, about 700 feet south of me, is on a landline from a smaller town 25 miles west of us.
And cell phone service out here is, you go out in the yard and walk around until you get one or two bars of signal before you even try to connect to make a call.
I've got DSL Internet over AT&T and I've got satellite TV, and they're both well worth the monthly fee.

I live way out in the sticks also, and I'm at the end of the phone line for phone service from a small town 30 miles away. My next door neighbor, about 700 feet south of me, is on a landline from a smaller town 25 miles west of us. And cell phone service out here is, you go out in the yard and walk around until you get one or two bars of signal before you even try to connect to make a call. I've got DSL Internet over AT&T and I've got satellite TV, and they're both well worth the monthly fee.

Somewhere close to you likely within 5 miles is a fiber optic line and a mini central office which may just look like a big cabinet on the side of the road. The phone cable in my area is 36 years old as is the SLICK Cabinet. The only way DSL would be in this area is IF AT&T ran a Fiber Optic cable to the SLICK. Thus line loss is eliminated.

AT&T for the most part is not doing upgrades. I talked to a lineman a couple weeks ago. AT&T is basically at this point keeping what they have operational until the cell grid is built up to take over or the over the power grid transmission gets the bugs worked out. Data is already being transmitted on the power grid but only for utility use right now.

My dad worked on Data circuits for Ma Bell up into the early 1990's. To run a data circuit takes balancing coils at specified intervals which must not exceed certain noise levels etc from the customer back to the Central Office.

AT&T's service is no better than the equipment in your neighborhood. Most upgrades in places like rural areas came before AT&T began buying up other the Bells like Bellsouth etc. Once AT&T bought it that was it.

Before AT&T bought Bellsouth you would see a Bellsouth van just about every time you went somewhere. Today under AT&T even in a large city you'll see maybe one a day. The Baby Bells or the older ones who split form AT&T at the mandated split carried far higher standards of upkeep. I've seen pedestals along the side of the road siting wide open wires hanging out.