I can't put if off any more; my lovely wife is in the final stages of restoring an old house out in Wharton, 50 miles from the Rice campus, and starting in a few weeks, we'll be spending a good part of our time out there, for starters, like four nights a week, and three nights a week in town (the office/house on Bissonnet will be remodeled to include a 1 bedroom pied a terre/crash pad convenient, naturally, to HRS, Reckling and Tudor. I'll have a home office out there and keep the 2044 Bissonnet office, as is, and split time; the anticipation is that it'll be relatively seamless, vis a vis my law practice <since around 40 per cent of my clients are out there already>, and totally transparent re Ricefootball.net).

I've had Comcast here at home in town, including the package that includes Rice sports. Comcast is not available in Wharton. Neither is U Verse. So it looks like a choice between Direct TV and Dish. Direct TV seems to offer the much broader choice of programming.

And...I need to bundle it with broadband that has a reasonably fast and very reliable upload capability, natch for Ricefootball.net uploads.

Questions:

1. Is it the consensus that Direct TV is the best deal all around, all things considered, I mean, among satellite programmers?

2. The top tier of Direct TV states it includes CBS College Sports in a sports package. I've read discussion on this board to the effect that the Rice sports broadcasts are not at all available on Direct TV. Is it that RIce stuff broadcast on Comcast ch 110 is proprietary and won't be available ANYWHERE else but Comcast, while the CBS CS stuff on Comcast 126 or whatever, would be what Direct TV is saying they're offering? In what stead would that put me vis a vis Rice sports broadcasts, I mean, out there in Wharton?

3. Can anybody suggest a good bundle of a broadband service provider with Direct -- as far as I can tell, all I can do is call Direct TV and see what they have available out there; probably only AT&T DSL. Anybody living out on the periphery of the Houston area with this issue, and with some suggestions? (We'll probably not want to get voice phone; rather, going VOIP -- but that means, all the more, that we'll need a relaible broadband uplink and downlink.)

4. I'm going to try and set up some kind of seamless online link between office/network/phones on Bissonnet and out at Wharton. Anybody had any experience with Grasshopper.com???

Sure could use some suggestions here; am sure we have some real jocks in this area who know what ought to be done. Many thanks in advance.