[thelist] Cable Modem vs DUN [OT maybe]

Group,

here's the deal...my "local" cable dealer (AT&T, <sigh>) is offering a
cheapy sign-up deal for a cable modem & access. I'm currently on a 56k
(never, try 28k at best) dial-up and will not have DSL available in my home
office for a long time. I'm concerned about being locked into their
proprietary version of NN and IE. Can you successfully test sites in all
the generations of browsers with cable & w/o a dial-up? My gut feeling is
I'd have to keep my dial-up which gains me nothing especially since I work
with a number of virtual hosted sites. 

/pbc