Cable or dsl for interactive gaming?

When you play a Sports or Action type game over the internet, what are the internet connectivity measurements that you should be looking at? ( bandwidth, ping/latency, other)?

The requirements of downloading a 100mb file to my PC (pure bandwidth) would seem different to me than receiving and sending many small instructions per second. In the on-line game experience my opponent and I are simultaneously 'seeing' things on our PC's/Consoles and reacting on a second by second basis. We are sending and receiving many small messages per second.

What network measurements should I be looking at to optimize this on-game experience? Is ping score all I need?