Last I read about DSL, and this was maybe a couple of months ago, 3mb was not going to be available for a WHILE.
Also, with a lot of you, I have NO IDEA where you're coming up with your numbers.
I have Verizon DSL in Philadelphia, PA. It costs about $30 a month and it has bandwidth with 1.5mb on the downstread and 128k on the up. (Basically, I ususally get about 120k downloads, and I have a capped upload of about 22k.)
WHere are you guys from that it offers you 3mb?? And how the heck do I sign up? Also, is it still running through your phone line?
As for your router troubles, $300 is WAY too much to spend.
I have a Wireless-B Linksys BEFW11S4 (version 4) router and it works beautifully. I paid about $100 for it a while ago but I've seen it at Best Buy for $40 after $20 mail-in rebate. Check out
http://www.newegg.com and see what the best prices are.
After that, just get ethernet cables. If you have any mom and pop computer shops around you, you can get some steals on Cat5 cable. The EB's here even sell it... for CHEAP. If you go to Best Buy or any other store like it, you may end up paying a dollar a foot. At EB and mom and pop shops, $10 for
100 feet. I don't know about you, but i'd rather go with that than 50 dollars for a wireless card that may or may not work with your game system. Besides that, you don't have to worry about insufficient signal strength with cables.
Also, the 11S4 work bith both XBOX AND PS2, officially. PS2 has trouble with some D-Links, as well as the M$ one.