In major centers (100,000 or more people) it is fairly inexpensive to build the necessary infastructure to provide really high speed internet to consumers; in 10 years I would be surprised if you don't see the average person in a city having 10 to 100 Megabit trasfer rates through wireless for $50 per month.
In contrast it is amazingly expensive to provide that kind of service to small centers and to individuals in rural areas. The reason why people actually have access to 56k at all is that (in many states and countries) the government created phone companies (or subsidised phone companies) in order to provide people with phone service. If you have to spend $10,000 to improve phone lines, or lay down fiber-optic (or coaxial) cable in order to provide internet service for a single farmer it isn't going to happen.
Satelite is currently viable and (soon enough) various forms of Wireless will start to spread into remote areas in part because there will be less infastructure required, and there will be increasing demand for this service along major (and minor) highways for cellphones (including the iPhone) in the near future.
