I'm with you. It's past time for affordable broadband in rural areas. I'm paying $125 for ISDN - 128k.
Unfortunately I have to have a fixed IP and reliable service.
I'm a bit worried that satellite will be too variable with the weather. However, it may be the answer for regular consumer service.
They have dial-up access (an option), but if your dish was aligned and peaked just right, you shouldn't have too many signal drop offs from what is called "rain fade". I get that occurance from my satellite TV service, but the signal dropouts are far and few between, and when the signal goes out, it usually stays out until the heavy downpour passes.
The dialup access would give someone something to fall back onto until the signal has be reacquired by the satellite modem.