Ah, finally! A post that has a tiny bit of relevance to the actual topic, 
down there in two of the paragraphs. I feel obligated to note that it was 
found, but it doesn't contain much substantive or useful information. Thank 
you for precisely what? Care to clarify?

declan_murphy@hotmail.com wrote:
> Shannon Jacobs wrote:
>> In spite of the overwhelming evidence that y'all have pretty much
>> succeeded in killing this newsgroup, I'll go ahead and include a
>> copy of this query here. Reminds me of the kind of tiny bar that's
>> basically 'owned' by a couple of drunks. I know it's wasting time to
>> attempt to reason with drunks, but if the bar had more business,
>> then maybe the owner could lower the prices?
>
> Don't be silly. When a bar is busy, the prices go up, and a bouncer is
> hired to keep the riffraff out.
>
>> Currently my communications costs in Kanagawa are running about 8,500
>> yen/month. This includes regular phone service, an ISP, a linked ADSL
>> service, and a mobile phone, but it still seems somewhat expensive.
>
> Seems fairly reasonable to me. I average about 22,000 a month for
> telecoms, though that includes a very substantial amount of business
> use. If I cut out all telecommuting I still think it would be hard to
> get costs below 10000/month.
>
>> The simple summary of goals
>> is that I'd like to minimize my costs while maintaining "sufficient"
>> service, but that notion of "sufficient" is difficult... Last year I
>> was hoping to consolidate everything on a wireless network, but the
>> wireless network I'm using now is so slow that it can barely handle
>> streaming audio
>
> Fairly stable 100MB in this part of Aichi - no problems with streaming
> (via my wireless network), even when I'm upstairs. Where exactly are
> you in Kanagawa?
>
>> Yahoo BB looked
>> interesting, but like my current ADSL and mobile phone providers,
>> English support is an afterthought. I can get by on Japanese, but
>> it's enough of a nuisance that I've been uninterested in Yahoo BB so
>> far...
>
> When are you going to get around to learning Japanese properly like
> the rest of us? It could solve your communication and library
> problems, and generally makes life in Japan a little easier.