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I'm in MI also and had charter pipeline at my home until I moved in to college. It depends on what speed you pay for a month. I believe there are three speeds that are incremented by $10 more per month. Even with the slowest, though, you should be downloading around 70-80 kB/sec max. I had the middle speed ($30/month) and I could download FROM FAST SERVERS at 90-100 tops. Keep in mind some Internet servers are slow and you won't be as fast. Your router shouldn't slow you down, assuming it's not wireless.

All this really doesn't have an effect on your ping, though. You should (no matter what speed) be able to ping servers really well with cable.

I'm guessing you don't have any problems and you ran into a slow server that was moving at 50 kb/sec. If you can get up to 100, then you're golden. That is the "lightning speed" they so generously advertise.