Well, I had an opposite experience.
I've been having ping and latency problems for a LONG time. We thought we had ironed all the problems out, when I began getting a 4% packet loss ALL THE TIME.
Technician came back out (on a Saturday) and tested the lines all the way to the Carrier station. He found that there was some bad copper lines near my house. So he told me he would have to replace that.
That was a month ago. I got a bit irate that I haven't had any changes in performance, and that I still can't play online games without major packet loss. So I call the phone company to complain that I haven't heard anything. They gave me three months credit and informed me as to why it has taken so long.
It seems they are going to replace 3 miles of cable, and install a new carrier station. All because I complained of slow DSL. I love my phone company.
Go go Farmer's Telephone!