What does "Satellite is out" mean? Do you have it and it's covered in snow? Or do you mean that your area is covered in trees? or simply not an option for you?
I've had satellite since September and I love the 2mbps downloads.
😎 The uploads are slow but faster than dialup, and you do have "FAP" limits. FAP=Fair Access Policy=you have a 169MB bucket that refills at 48kbps and if you empty your bucket you are "FAPed." I have 3 (or more) computers connected to it at all times and we've only hit FAP maybe twice, and both times it's still way faster than 128k and hard to even notice.
Are you in the US?
There are "FAP-less" options. I would really suggest:
http://www.groundcontrol.com/bandwidth_001.htm
Scroll to the bottom and you can read about the FAP-less business accounts. I think it runs about $100/month.
Don't trust the reviews you read online about DirecWay. Sure they have tech support in India, and sure they have crappy billing, and sure they don't know their asses from their elbows, but you can avoid all of that with Ground Control.
The most important thing is the install. If you get a great installer you'll be up forever. The dish isn't like DirecTV and must be pointed very very precisely, and also grounded well to prevent static build up.
I've been down once since my install for about 45 mintues. It was during a tornado at the network operations center in MD and the whole town was without power. However, every ISP has outages.