AFAIK it does not/ will not run on dial-up, will only run on
broadband.
The detail ranges from 'can't see a house' to 'seeing people
and cars reasonably well'.

I don't know if it will run any better on dialup, but this is also
a pretty nifty tool, most areas have arial photos, some areas
have "birds eye" photos which almost let you count clapboards
and paving stones:
http://local.live.com/

Also, google maps itself is pretty good, depending on the
available arial photos. I particularly like the "hybrid" view
which superimposes a street map on the arial photos:
http://maps.google.com/

I don't know if either will be able to do what you want, but at
least there are no programs to download (I'm sure just the
images will take long enough).
--Glenn Lyford