Jim,

The only disadvantage about the always connected thru your phone line connection from what I've read is, it becomes much more akin to making your PC to resemble a full time server, making it more vulnerable to infiltration by a hacker. I don't know how true this may be.

If Direct PC will come down in price for the receiver, make a receiver compatable with a DirectTV standard satelite dish, and figure out that charging for access based on megabytes downloaded is going backward instead of moving forward in this medium (Cserve used to charge more per hour if you had a faster modem), that'll be the route I'll take, even at $50 or $60 a month for access.

I'd give my kingdom for a T3 connection, but my kingdom isn't worth anywhere near than much, and the local lottery was hit last Wednesday, so I'll have to wait a couple months, at least...

Bob