Yes... your eyes are not deceiving you. That up there really DOES say "DSL."

The boy and I have finally seen the light.

Actually, we're just downright tired of having dial-up at the speed (ha ha! I said "speed" and "dial-up" in the same sentence) of 0.01 kbps (and that .01 is on a GOOD day, I should add!), and everyone else is tired of our phone line always being busy in the hours that it takes me to surf the web every day, so we are finally shopping around for DSL.

But I have barely begun poking around online to see what's on offer and - this should come as no surprise to you - I'm already confused. And y'all KNOW that it doesn't take very much to confuse the likes of me!

So of course, I've decided to enlist your help, oh, ye wise, web-savvy ones!

Here's the thing. Our phone service provider is Verizon. Our dial-up provider is SBC-Yahoo. Boy isn't keen on the idea of transferring all his e-mails from his SBC-Yahoo account (he's had that e-mail for YEARS), so he would like to get SBC DSL. However, we're not sure if we would be able to get SBC DSL with a Verizon phone service. Also, I've read some bad reviews about SBC (while "DSL-HELL" appeals to my sense of rhyme, it does NOT sound good when read by a potential customer in a service review!).

I see that Verizon also has DSL service, but getting that would probably involve a mass exodus of e-mails and e-mail subscriptions of the boy's e-mail account.

But now I've also seen DSL services like Speakeasy (that sounds like my kind of DSL joint! After-hours boozing comes to mind. And fried food. I can already hear the poetry of Langston Hughes as well as jazz tunes on the jukebox...) and the other one that begins with a C (I'm not trying to be funny, I really can't remember and I'm afraid that if I start looking it up, I might get soo lost that I'd never find my way back here again. And no, it isn't Comcast).

Speaking of Comcast. We don't want cable. It's seems very expensive, and besides, Comcast seems to have a monopoly on the Baltimore area, and that, to me, is just wrong.

Oh, and speaking of areas... I see that some DSL providers are not available in certain areas?

Please advise!?