lmonter, we're looking for 20+ acres, with no views of a neighbor at all! LOL 
countryangels, my own experience has been that the owners & property mgt companies do not know much about the internet availability at each home. The owners either just plain don't know what company they're signed up with (& I can assume they didn't do a lot of research into their options, they just signed up with whatever they heard of), or they'll tell me who they're signed up with, but not know whether there are other options. And there often are, sometimes much better (faster) options. But most of the rural homes we call about just used dial-up because they don't work at home, and don't realize or care that there are faster options available now.
The property mgmt companies are also maddening. :p They don't know anything about the house because they don't live there, & have often never visited it. They will tell me things like "ohhhh, I'm pretty sure you could only get dial-up out there...". Or, "Why don't you call Comcast & ask them?" Then it turns out Comcast doesn't even touch that area.
That's why I like that highspeedinternet.com site. It helps me narrow down options. I also spent a ton of time Googling "high speed internet north idaho" & calling every company to ask what areas they cover.
LOL Can you tell I've spent a lot of time on this?? 
ETA: If you are planning to live directly IN CDA, then Frontier should cover your high speed internet needs just fine. Same thing for Comcast IN Spokane. It's just that when you start wandering toward the outskirts & then out of city limits that things start getting iffy.
:)
Okay, I suck, are you looking to rent or buy at first? Because if you're fairly conservative/responsible (due to the area if you want to blend in more or less), I do know of a shouse for sale in a small town south of CdA... Frontier only has DSL, sometimes FIOS in certain areas. Time Warner Cable has cable internet in a lot of places, although I still miss the olden days of Century Communications. Sigh. Hubby says there's a wireless internet company (yimax?) that his old bosses use and they say it's fairly fast. Beams off a tower up the hill from us apparently. Sometimes the heavy snow or high winds knock their dish out of alignment which is an annoyance, but those are easy-ish fixes. The old bosses are on 20-30 acres probably 15 miles north of CdA - a fairly wooded area.
I guess if I am renting or buying, they would know
if the property has high speed internet access, right?
I am not sure if it was you or another poster in the past, from Northern Idaho was leaving the area, I think it was work related, not sure...
Is the job situation in the area looking about the same as the rest of the country, better or worse? I appreciate your help!
The job market/situation is about the same to less. If you're in construction, nope, not a good time unless you already have projects lined up for the next two years. If you're an engineer, things are picking back up as the older generation is retiring. Other things... depends. Yes, for most of last year my hubby was working a state away since that was the only place he could find a job. Leaving me and the four kids (one a newborn - he missed the birth by an hour) at home by ourselves. It wasn't fun at all. That job finally imploded after lots of things - including 106-hour work weeks and other crap. So hubby just up and quit (don't worry, we discussed it before he walked into the boss's office), landed an interview the next week, and now he works from our basement doing the kind of thing he enjoys, and for more money to boot. And he also had a tentative offer from a place here in town, but not with the huge bump in salary. We really, really, really lucked out in that regard though. Sometimes I'm still in shock about that whirlwind that managed to work out.
If you're renting from a regular person, yeah, they may know what's available in the area. Likely, they'll only know who *they* use. Most folks aren't like me and hubby - checking out our options every so often. Like the shopping around for car insurance every year or two is something I've done since college, check to see whether refinancing to a 15-year mortgage would be worth it (not right now unless closing costs are waived), seeing if FIOS is available in our neighborhood yet (nope), blah blah blah. We're not normal. ;)
Follow Mothering