I believe that claims based on calculated engineering results from a lab simulation will _never_ match reality.
Man, I can tell you been there!
I just had dsl installed. No cost to me. It was not free, someone paid. If you look at your bill there are many little additional charges, one is for telecomm in rural areas.
2 things I learned. The installer, a 50 year old guy who simply ran the cables and hooked me up, he did not dig the trench, told me he made $120 K last year with overtime and could have been more. That surprised me.
I knew it was no cost to me but, I asked why? DSL runs on the telephone wires, the twisted pair. Because telephony is a utility, the providers must provide service.
I reminded him, I got no phone, no land line. He laughed and said the phone cos are working congress real hard to get that changed. He said Spectrum would have charged $4K to run the 2600 ft.
There is a move to make internet access a utility.