Internet Access in Russia

I just got internet access here in Russia. It's been 2 1/2 weeks since the rest of the American team left and I've been (slowly) learning how to live here. Several days ago I got a crash course in Russian internet access technologies, while walking from store to store in Anapa with a Russian fellow named Igor. The land line phone infrastructure here isn't as developed as in the US, so most electronic communication is over the air. I was originally hoping to use a system called WiMax, which is a two-way receiver/transeiver that communicates line-of-sight with a tower on the hill. A little pricey, but WiMax supports up to 512 kb/s upload/download. Unfortunately, I live too close to the hill and a smaller hill blocks my view of the tower. Last Friday night I spent 2 hours walking from store to store with Igor shopping for modems. "Modem" seems to be a general term for any electronic device that accesses the internet in some way. A cell phone can be a modem, a USB device that accesses the GPRS network (at 5 kb/s) can be a modem, etc. I'm currently using my cell phone as a modem. Access speed isn't too bad, as long as other people in the neighborhood aren't making phone calls. The voice/data channel is shared between up to 20 people, locally, so the connection speed can be anywhere between 5kb/s and 100 kb/s (I think). I talked briefly with Pastor victor about setting up directed wifi antennas on our houses and sharing his WiMax connection, but decided to go with the Sputnik (satellite) option instead. So, I'm getting a satellite receiver installed today or tomorrow which will increase the download speed quite a bit (but not the upload speed). In a few more days I'm getting another "modem" (not sure exactly how this one works, but it requires a SIM card of it's own) which ought to increase my upload speed, if it works in my town. We'll see how that goes. In the meantime, I've got my cell phone modem at 5-100 kb/s. Later.