I live in a rural area and have slow DSL also. It is never going to improve here unless they roll out some kind of cheap wireless internet because I'm way off the road and don't even have any utility poles for the cable company to string wires. So I'm stuck with Verizon copper that is buried somewhere.
I knew all of this when I moved here 8 years ago and it was a trade-off that was worth it for living in a secluded natural location.
But I'm so mad at Apple!
I'm slightly familiar with situations like yours. I live in Kansas about an hour from Kansas City. While I live in a sizable bedroom community where cable broadband is everywhere and AT&T U-Verse covers a portion of town (no Google Fiber here :'(), my boyfriend's dad lives a few miles outside of town in the country. He's on a dirt county road but not too far from the intersection of two US highways and less than 3 miles from a major interstate. Yet he doesn't get cable service from town even after 20 years in the house and suburbia slowly encroaching. When he had internet, it was via Wimax. But it's a tradeoff for a guy who likes his privacy despite having worked in IT.
OP, exchanging a laptop and getting mad at the computer maker won't change your situation. Pressure your service provider to provide better service or pay extra for such if you want it. If faster internet is important to you, then consider moving elsewhere.
The push for better rural broadband is slow, but it's coming. I read a while back that internet will be next on the government's list after digital broadcast TV and trading out the copper phone lines. Internet may actually be part of the phone stuff.
