With no modem in the picture, the whole customer support issue is greatly simplified. Except for the fact that you may have an additonal two or three vendors in the loop, you should save some money on support. I suggest taking a deep breath and waiting. Since I serve a very rural market, I think it will be longer than that here. In that time, several technologies are likely to shake out.
Cable is one alternative, wireless is another.
We are concentrating on being the very best dial-up provider we can be, because that is where the bulk of the business is. It doesn't make any sense to lose a bunch of money chasing a negative margin business when we can build a very sizable operation doing dial-up. Don't get me wrong, broadband is a serious threat for the small to mid-sized ISP, but DSL is not the right technology for my marketplace. If your doing business with US West and still manage to eat.