That's weird.

We're half a mile from the road, and we got DSL as soon as it became available in our area.

We're in your situation as far as cable - our next door neighbor on our same lane, who's maybe 100 yards closer to the road than we are, can get cable, but we can't. So we were on dialup until five or six years ago.

We tried satellite, but couldn't get reception through the trees. It's plenty for TV, but not enough for internet apparently.

Might be worth looking into wireless. Everyone seems to be making tethering more feasible.