Media for New to Wireless-Can't I Buy My Own Equip?

New to Wireless-Can't I Buy My Own Equip?

I need some hand holding :o I live in a rural area where cable and dsl are not available. Satellite is available but very expensive startup and from what I read, not too stable. I've been waiting for over a year on a company to put up a wireless tower. Just found out last week that they've shelved the plan for this tower because someone has installed a tower and "the two towers would cause interference and both companies would have problems". Really? So in large metropolitan areas there's only one wireless company?? I've been given a price of $597 startup cost (hardware/install and setup) and $49 a month (no contract and I purchase the equipment from them). This gets me 512K download. The owner went on to explain I *could* go to Best Buy and buy my equipment but it isn't very good quality (and of course, his is). I have no idea what GOOD wireless hardware costs or what is considered good quality or what I need. As well versed in computers as I am, I'm that clueless to anything wireless :o This is a lot of money and I know the fact that there is no competition in the area is why it's so expensive. If I can get the price down by buying my own equipment, I really need to. I don't know if this will help or not but he did say that some companies install a tower at your house but he doesn't. He installs some kind of (box?) on an existing structure such as a TV tower. Any info, tips, advice you can offer would be much appreciated. Oh, my Dell computer is P4 3.2ghz, 1GB ram. Looking under Network Adapters in Device Manager, I have a 1394 Net Adapter and Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx GB Net Controller...just in case any of that matters

Thanks, Monica