it's the rains but mostly the location. We live a couple of
   miles away from the largest Federal Environmental restoration
   project; the Everglades Restoration thing. They're working to
   cut a swath through the base of Florida so the water flows from
   one side to the other, through the magical rivers of grass or
   whatever.

   Basically, they're trying to partially undo what the Army Corp
   of Engineers did in the 40s and 50s, which was allowing for
   development on top of Swampland.

   I live on the "Got a piece of swampland to sell you" but we got
   it long after that land-scam was over with.

   Anyway, being on the edge of civilization, we only got broadband
   in like 2005 or so and at that it was DSL. We stuck with DSL
   'cause it's dirt cheap, even after Comcast came around a year or
   so later.

   It stays up mostly but during periods of bad weather, my
   provider loses connections to the domain name servers and
   sometimes I have to switch DNS. Sometimes that doesn't work.

   Then again, for like $20/month fixed at their "high speed"
   option (which isn't nearly as fast as Comcast, but at least
   we're not getting ripped off), dealing with an occasional issue
   is no big deal.

   We've got a big house and a lot of people with lots of computers
   and internet devices.

   In Boston, it's not likely you'll ever get even a second of
   downtime. City. Good support infrastructure.

   Out in the boonies? Barely linked to civilization? Things are a
   little more 'wild', but overall, not that much different.