I was leaving the palm forum and just stopped in for a visit! I was raised in the country in Texas and still here for that matter but not sure what's available for your area. We have AT&T YAHOO DSL. (formally sbc yahoo) We also have something called Xanadu, but know nothing about it.Direc way or direct tv is outragious on prices, forget them! I do know that at&t offers dish net and a dsl if that is available. Also, do a google search for your area for dsl provider. Maybe something you can sign on with! Dial-up is sssooooooooo sssssloowwwwwwww! Good luck!

Cable comes to our road, but not to our house. They did a survery and told us that it would cost US $500-$1000 to hook up up. DSL isn't available here either. We also checked out a local company, but they wouldn't even return my inquiry calls. Not a good sign. So we went with Direcway, now Hughesnet I believe. It was expensive to hook up, but not as bad as cable. Our service is ok. Not so great when it's windy or raining (a bummer since we live in the NW). It has a much narrower search area than our satellite TV. For us it all boiled down to how desperate we were. We simply couldn't bear having dial-up. It was painful. So we took the plunge. Do I like it...I would give it a 'C'

Af far as I know, we will never get cable here and can't get DSL, so satellite would be the only high-speed option...

renita, thanks for the input on hughes... I wonder if the different companies are comparable? I saw there is also one called Starband and Wild Blue... Starband being the most expensive, the Hughes, then Wild Blue being the cheapest at $50/month... but apparently they are a little slower (like 512 instead of 700) Im thinking of going with Wildblue, but hoping to hear some feedback on them!

I've heard good reports about Wildblue.

You can check into wireless. I'm in the middle of the woods in the middle of no where and have wireless. It's faster than and doesn't have the lag of satellite. It's also much less expensive to set up.

I have satelite hookup via StarBand. I am very happy with it - even dial up isn't an option where I live. When there is a heavy cloud cover it sometimes goes down. I was told that it wouldn't work well when there was snow, but it seems to be ok. There is a "boot" available from a company in Canada so that the system will work in snow, but I haven't checked into it - we only had about 2 ft of snow last winter. If you have more, you might be interested.

I have a friend who has WildBlue and she likes it.

What exactly is wireless? is it thru your cell phone?

My hard drive receives a signal from a tower on a mountain two miles from here. I have an antenna on the roof to get the signal above the trees. I get a signal without the antenna but it's not as strong as it should be. I work online so I need a reliable connection. No phone line needed.

How do you go about getting wireless internet? Whats the company name? Is it really fast like cable? thanks...

http://www.pwless.net/corporate/default.htm This is my provider. You can use a search engine with wireless and your location to find out if there's a provider near you.

It's faster than cable. It doesn't slow down because of increased traffic on the same line - there is no line. If your computer is on you're online. There's no waiting to log in. Weather doesn't affect wireless like it does satellite.

We have a local WiFi company that has towers set up close to where we live, we get 256k for 21.00/month. not too bad considering some of the other companies out there. Call around or look in the yellow pages under internet, there might be a local company in your area too.
We live 12 miles from the nearest city so we are out in the country too.

I have Verizon local phone carrier and they offer DSL thru the phone line for $16 a month.

We're also out in the country where there's no cable internet, no DSL, and no wireless. We've had Starband for almost four years, and I am generally pleased with it.

It was expensive to have installed, but I think it's come down in price for the installation. In the South, we get a nice, strong signal, and light rain/fog don't make the service go down. Sometimes a big storm clouds will, if they're close and toward the south, where the dish is aimed.

However, it's very, very difficult to get through to their customer service, which is not 24/7/365. I haven't needed it much, but when I have, yikes. I don't know how Wildblue is in that regard. Starband started off better with cust. service, and went downhill slowly over the last couple years.

My modem died, and I had to replace it, and that was very quick.

I am still searching... Wireless sounded great, but I haven't been able to find a wisp here. The county wants to put to offer it to everyone somehow, but who knows when that will be. (Probably will be offered as soon as I pay a lot of $ for satellite - lol)

I was going to get wildblue but now they say they arent installing in this area at this time???? this is a very fast growing area and I cant understand why there arent more broadband options!! :( If i had money and knew what was involved, maybe Id set up my own wireless isp! Here I am about an hour from this nations capital and these ISPs would make you think I was way out in the middle of the desert. (sorry I am ranting lol)