As noted already, you simply need to contact the major data service companies to see what it would cost to run a high speed trunk to your location -- a single T1 line (1.544Mb) is not really fast enough to provide high speed service to 20-24 users ... you'll probably want multiple T1's if you want enough bandwidth for a reasonable number of users to have a good rate simultaneously. [You could also price a T3 ... but that's probably prohibitively expensive -- and likely not even available unless you absorb a very large installation cost.]
I suspect you'll find that it's not economical for you to absorb the cost of installing these lines -- if it was, the phone/cable companies would likely already be offering the service, as they're rapidly expanding their broadband infrastructure nationwide to areas with sufficient demand.
Note that the HughesNet satellite speeds aren't really bad with the higher level plans -- but they can get a bit pricey. I've helped several folks who live outside of internet availability areas set up their satellite access, and the speed is rarely an issue ==> but the Fair Access Policy definitely can cause speed issues for heavy users.
The standard plan ($59.99/month) has a data rate of 1.0 Mbps down/128 Kbps up ... not as fast as wired broadband, but still a huge (20-25x) improvement over dialup. You can increase these rates for more $$ ... I think the fastest reasonably priced choice is 2.0Mbps down/300 Kbps up for $119.99/month. The complete set of choices is here:
http://go.gethughesnet.com/plans.cfmBut if you're a heavy user, you may be experiencing the Fair Access Policy throttling ==> this results in your download speeds being reduced to dial-up rates for 24 hours. It is applied whenever your downloads exceed a threshold that varies by your plan .... for the basic "Home" plan it's 200MB/day; for the "Elite" and higher plans it's 500MB/day. Note that downloads between 2AM and 7AM Eastern time do not count in measuring this limit [that time window is called the "download period"] ... this allows updates, virus definitions, etc. to be downloaded without penalty ==> and if you use a download manager you can also schedule other large downloads to run during this period.
Clearly satellite access isn't a good choice if you need to download streaming video or frequent large files, as you'll continously encounter the Fair Access throttle; but otherwise it can be quite fast as long as you're aware of and use the "download period" for your larger downloads.
Obviously you wouldn't want to be sharing a satellite connection, as the Fair Access throttle would likely get quickly engaged every day . But HughesNet also offers "Business-Class" services that may have higher Fair Access throttles ... you have to contact them for more information or a quote [
http://business.hughesnet.com/learnmore/services_business_internet.html ]. This will not be inexpensive -- the "ElitePremium" plan for home use (5Mb down/300Kb up) is $349.99/month and it still has a 500MB Fair Access throttle point; so I'm sure if they have a higher Fair Access threshold it will be priced accordingly.
