Hey all, I'm sure there is nothing anyone can do about this problem at this point, but I'm gonna ask anyway. I am living with my parents for a while here, the problem is they don't have any broadband access. I have talked to the cable provider in the area and they say it isn't financially feasible at this time to run the cable to our house. DSL providers say we are too far from the closest station to get their service. The only option that I have seen is satellite, and all I hear from them is "bend over and pay us to give you the shaft please". Am I missing anything? Do I have any other options?

Cellular broadband service.

Grumpy

Hm, never had any experience with that, how does it stack up to services like cable or dsl?

EVDO Cellular Broadband can give a bit better download/upload speeds than satellite and MUCH better latencies. Granted it is no where near DSL or Cable but it sure beats dialup. There are a few routers out there that will accept PCMCIA cellular data cards too. If you ever want to be able to play an online game dont even think about satellite.

In my area I get about 60-80kb/s download speeds on a good day and around 150-200ms latencies through my Treo smartphone. My friends dedicated data card usually gets over 80kb/s and around 120-150ms latencies.

I dont have much experience with Edge or 3G data service but from what I've heard/read it is usually a bit slower (and more expensive).

The plan I'm looking at has a 5 gig monthly allowance (biggest plan available) through verizon. I would be using the connection for general web browsing (occasional streaming video) and World of warcraft (along with ventrilo). Would this cut it? Would the game sending/receiving constantly eat through that allowance before the end of the month? I would just hate to sign on for a service just to not be able to use it.

Oh, you could use it after that....but if it's like ATT, you'd get charged like 1 penny for every kilobyte over the 5 gb. I think ATT also offers that though. Also, see if any wireless providers(non cellular) cover your area.