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>>If all you have is "wireless sort-of-broadband" your ISP might impose usage restrictions, either for your account specifically if you exceed daily service limits, or maybe globally if what you're doing looks like a bandwidth hog (e.g. torrents). Traffic shaping at its finest. OTOH, it may be the only way your ISP can survive if they don't have a fat pipe.
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>They do not restrict us here (our ISP is small enough that I know everyone in their company). My home office is one of 4 count-em 4 wireless customers in our town. The speed is simply a limit of the technology (it is 802.11 based).
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>All I can say is it is better than dial-up. Up until we discovered the wireless link being relayed through our town (the ISP didn't think anyone in this hole would want broadband), dial-up was all there was, and even that was crappy by dial-up standards.
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>Welcome to the middle-of-nowhere, Kansas.

I know what you mean. Up to the end of last month I had a client in Burnaby (city immediately adjacent to the City of Vancouver), but tucked away in a corner of an industrial zone. They were never able to get ADSL or cable, or muni/private wireless. Their only other option was satellite! It was too expensive for their limited needs, so they suffered dialup. The best dialup speed I ever saw at their location was 24kbps, average was 17-19, at times as poor as 13kbps. I had to make sure I brought any software I needed with me, it was too painful to download :|