What's Dial-up???
I live a ways from town. When BellSouth installed my phone line last September, I asked the tech about DSL. He chuckled. I asked, "When will DSL be available here?" He said, "Never." I asked why not. He said, "This area's too sparsely populated. No way is BellSouth gonna pay to upgrade the nearest remote station. It would take years and years for them to break even."
We don't have cable here either. For the same reason.
I checked on internet via satellite. $80-90/month. Ouch! I love my fellow FReepers, but not that much :) And I've had people tell me internet via satellite sucks.
Bottom line: I'll be using 56K dialup for the foreseeable future.
And remember, there are millions of folks all across the country that are in the same boat as me.
We obviously need a taxpayer supported program to underwrite the cost of having cable, DSL and wi-fi available everywhere! Yeah, that's the ticket :)