Technical difficulties part DUH!

Any experts out there who can tell me what to do about my poor dial-up connection ?I normally have a decent bandwidth but for the past two days I have not been above 9.6 kpbs-which is barely workable.It seems to be worse in damp weather so I am assuming it is a dial tone line issue...but who knows?Then it will go back to normal in a few days and come back on occasional whims.I have neighbors just 1/2 a mile away who get DSL,mainly because they are in a different exchange and closer to that particular "switch".My neighbor has Hughesnet,but as you probably know it's very expensive and prone to the same difficulties with digital television in that weather can affect the quality of satellite transmission.I get flyers on a bi-monthly basis form a local cable television company offering me cable internet but the nearest CATV line to me is 2 miles away so I just use dialup and it isn't that bad.It all depends on what you need-I am not a PC gamer enthusiast and I do not watch videos or movies online so I can compromise on bandwidth-but it bothersome sometimes when you visit some webpages with alot of Flash graphics.I use it for timewaster and trivia games,reading,blogging,email,so it works for me.It would be nice to download movies like so many others do but for the time being dialup is inexpensive,next to free almost if you shop right,and it fills a need than it isn't otherwise being met.If only it was more consistent in speed....