Internet Options

Internet Options - I've investigated various options, but there are so many pros, cons, and unknown factors to weigh that it's hard make a choice.

Here's the list:
Dialup - Cheap, but way too slow. Not really an option.
Two-way satellite internet - I've heard bad things about this, but it's been available for awhile now so I'd guess it's not completely useless. The latency sucks, but there's no way to get around it and I'm not a gamer so how bad can it be? Do I go with Direcway or Starband or GroundControl or are there other companies?

I've heard stories that some services throttle bandwidth or charge per GB. Also kind of expensive. Gotta sign year+-long contracts. Does it work in bad weather?

Phone company says that we're out of range for DSL, but get the DSL modem anyway and see if it works. As suggested here. Anyone done this?

Get the phone company to drop a DSL-ready line from the trunk to the house. This is probably expensive (how much?) and would take time to convince the phone company to do.

T1 line. Expensive. $600/mo? Probably more.

Wifi antenna pointed towards a wireless access point somewhere in DSL land. Downsides: don't know anyone in surrounding DSL land, possible line-of-sight issues.

Run cable coax from nearest cable subscriber's house several miles away. Absurd. Included only for the sake of completeness.

Does anyone have any personal experience with any of this? Any recommendations or helpful pointers? Satellite internet seems like the best option, but looking around at the available services, it seems expensive and just generally like the service they offer is kind of "my way or the highway" and generally makes me uneasy and unclean. Many thanks in advance for anything you can offer.

Please follow these instructions to enable Java though your Web browser:

Browsers for Windows
  • Internet Explorer
  • Click Tools and then Internet Options
  • Select the Security tab, and select the Custom Level button
  • Scroll down to Scripting of Java applets
  • Make sure the Enable radio button is checked
  • Click OK to save your preference
Chrome
  • Click on the wrench icon, then select Options.
  • Select Under the Hood and then Privacy Content Settings.
  • The Content Settings panel will appear.
  • In the Plug-ins section, select the Disable individual plug-ins link to check whether Java is enabled
  • Click on the Enable link (if the Disable link appears, Java is already enabled)
Note: Alternatively, you can access the Plug-ins settings by typing about:plugins in the browser address.