Even in Australia we have mobile broadband cheaper than that! Virgin prepaid mobile broadband has 1GB for AUD $30 (~US$24).
But the cheapest way is to scam the system. For $2 I buy a twin pack of voice SIMs, but when you activate them you can choose "mobile broadband" instead, and you get 300MB on each SIM for 30 days. So, for AU$4, you can get 1.2GB ;-)
Quit your winging and look at the prices we have to pay for broadband in Australia! You complain about possibly being capped at 100GB, 200GB, 300GB, yet in Australia, most plans are around 30GB for around the same price...
Most places in the major cities get around 6Mbps to 14Mbps DSL, and have to pay AU$30 line rental (no calls or anything included for that price) and around AU$60 for a decent ADSL2+ plan with 30GB of download quota included (which is split between peak and off-peak times as well!) I.e. we have to pay AU$90 for a measly 10GB of download during the day, and 20GB during the night...
These remind me of the page turning thingy's pianists use sometimes for long "busy" pieces of music (i.e. they need both hands near the ends of the pages, so can't have one hand free to turn the page themselves). Perhaps you could look into some of those. I think they are usually activated by a foot pedal, so you (or someone you know) could easily modify it to be activated however you wish.
Engadget, did you read the article? It doesn't have HDMI input - it's an output. The input is firewire, s-video, composite, and USB.
Second paragraph: "It incorporates an HDMI™, component, and composite video output for playback on a compatible TV."
and a bit later: "It includes Digital Video (i.LINK®/FireWire®/IEEE-1394), S-video, composite video inputs, and USB (for use with Sony hard drive, DVD, and Memory Stick Handycam camcorders)."
But in that situation, a much cheaper IP KVM would be just as suitable, if not more so. And if you want to keep it isolated from the net, there's nothing stopping you from still using that dedicated fibre.
That said, I haven't used an IP KVM myself, so I don't know what the video quality is like. Since this device uses uncompressed video, it may be more suitable for the odd situation that requires absolutely perfect image quality. The only one I can really think of is real time telescope viewing. But then do they actually run at high frame rates? If not, it would be much cheaper to just get the computer to transmit the frames itself over TCP/IP...
"I'm heading to university next year, and I've purchased a MacBook. I'm also taking my four year old desktop, just in case I'm left with no computers when the MacBook is being repaired or whatnot. With only two USB ports on a MacBook, I want a Bluetooth mouse. Budget is about $100, and of course, it needs OS X support. Thanks for the help!"
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But the cheapest way is to scam the system. For $2 I buy a twin pack of voice SIMs, but when you activate them you can choose "mobile broadband" instead, and you get 300MB on each SIM for 30 days. So, for AU$4, you can get 1.2GB ;-)