I also live out in a rural area. Both Bellsouth(DSL) and Comcast have stated that they have no plans to serve my area.
Wild Blue did mention that you should look for special offers from your service provider. I did find at least one (not in my area) that quoted an equipment cost of $99 but did not quote an installation fee. This is an electric coop in Minnesota.
mlecmn.net
Here is a copy and paste from their website:
Wild Blue...
* 2-way High-Speed Satellite Internet Service (Broadband)
* Available virtually anywhere
* No phone lines, no cable and no dial-up
* Always on
* Up to 30 times faster than 56K dial-up
* $49.95/mo. for speeds up to 512K download
* $99 equipment chg., plus connection and installation fees.
* We plan to offer a "one-dish" solution for Internet and DirecTV in the future.
Wildblue billing will be handled at our Aitkin office. If you have other MLEC services, all will be on the same bill. Monthly payments can be made by direct payment, credit card, check, cash or money order. Online payments can be made on this website.
End of paste
The website was last updated on 04/11/2005, so this information could change as time goes on. They mentioned a availibility date of May. This could also change.
I plan on getting this service as soon as it is available in my area, although I realize that there is some risk being an "early adopter". Wild Blue says a telephone coop that is within 15 miles of my house will be installing, but they have nothing on their website yet. I sent them an email - we'll see what they say.
Omega13