Update: I spoke to IceNetwork.
For the last few days, most of options in their voice menu returned a remark that they are down for maintenance, which I pointed out to the person I eventually got through to (when I picked option 1). She said she would tell her supervisor, so that problem should go away.
The person was very polite and helpful. She told me to visit
http://iplocation.net to find out whether my IP location was correctly listed as in the United States - it is. She told me they also look at the billing address to determine locale, which would also have been within the U.S..
She looked at past records of my log-ins (which they archive) from 2009 to find out why the system mis-identified me as outside the U.S. She couldn't figure out why, as all the IP addresses it gave were within the U.S.
She said that if all else failed, if I signed up for service, and could not make it work, they would refund the price.
That isn't quite what the IceNetwork help page says: "You may cancel your subscription..., but only if that season has not yet begun or if you are less than 5 days into the term and have not yet used your subscription." Since I have to use the subscription to determine whether it thinks I am in the U.S., or if the video quality is poor, that policy would say it would be my problem. So the question is whether I believe they lady on the line, or the stated policy.
She said there was no trial page at this time to see whether or not it thinks I am in the U.S., and whether the video quality I could receive on my computer, through my network, was of high quality. (Lots of things that could affect video quality. IceNetwork itself. Various external network issues. My Router/Firewall. My computer, a slow laptop...)
Maybe I just have to try it and see. (Subscriptions don't last a full year now - they go through the next September 15.)