really is cable modem that expensive where you are?
I live on the U.S. east coast and for me cable was the obvios economic fix. any good dial up service is going to cost you about 20 to 30 bucks a month and the extra cost for an extra phone line( if you want people to actually be able to call you when you are online). Then if you add in the cost of cable television(about 35 to 45 dollars) dial up is ripping you off for a service that you cannot even reliably download the nvidia drivers on.
Now compare that to what I did. I got cable modem service and canceled my cabletv, my extra phone line and dial up service. I now pay only one bill and guess what... Five minuits after the tech hooked my shit up I had my cable wire split in my basement and ran it to my tv.
I now pay 45 bucks a month for a throughput of about 1250kbps to 3150kbps, an uncapped cable line, ie. I get hbo1,2,and 3 cinemax, showtime etc. etc. and I am in no danger of getting cought since there is no device present witch can tell how many times a person splits there cable once it's inside there house.
It may be a little underhanded but it's worth it.
