Sick of dial-up and contracts about up:

[Gilly]

What's the next step up for me? New computer probably next year. Averaged out my drag-ass dial up is only costing me $9.95 a month. I'd be willing to go up to $20 or so a month.
I'm not up on all the fancy abbreviations, I DO know what "56K" means and I rarely get up to even half that on this thing. A couple options I see:
"Charter High Speed Internet" is from the cable company we are with. They are offering 6 month teaser rates, we'd need to up out cable service to Digital Cable TV (6 month teaser rate 54.99, we are paying nearly that now, but I don't know the post-teaser rate), and then 19.99/month for whatever type of computer service this is called (promises "up to" 3 Mbps). The other option is from the ISP we are with now, here is a link to what they are offering:
http://www.nationwide.net/residsl.htm
That's DSL (what does DSL mean anyways, sounds like an abbreviation for "Diesel" which sounds pretty slow unless it's at least 6 cylinders and has a turbo) Broadband (not that I know what "broadband" means either, sounds like "Radio Free Hooters" to me . Sticking with the current ISP means I can keep my current email address, but the service from my ISP says "new subscribers only", maybe this means me as I just have their dila-up service now. I have to have a certain phone service for this DSL, which is the one I am with anyways, is DSL Broadband a cable or something else? What difference does it make to them what phone company I'm with, unless it's over the phone wire, which makes no sense to me.
Thanks for any enlightenment you guys can give me on this. Is what I want possible? Price is big factor here, $20, maybe $25/month.
Gilly