I just started using Skycasters satellite net service. It's a static
IP service and I'm sharing it across 8 computers, including 2 pcs and
6 macs.

My configuration is a D Link wireless router with 4 ports (DI-714P+
2.4GHZ Wireless Router). One of the four ports then goes to an 8 port
hub that the wireless-less PCs and macs use.

So far so good.

I've configured the D-Link to work with the static IP address that
skycasters delivers. My mac is using wireless and DHCP to access the
airport signal coming form the D Link.

The problem?

It's slow.

When I do an online speed test (downloading sizable files) I get a
download speed of 768k. Which is awfully quick.

But Google takes more than a second to load. Every single web page is
slower than it is on my DSL at home. This speed lag occurs when I use
the wireless and when I plug into the 8 port hub as well.

It doesn't happen if I plug directly into the wan provided by Skycasters.

SO, here are my questions (finally):
1. am I setting up the Dlink wrong?
2. are the settings for the macs and pcs wrong? (hard to believe)
3. do I need to buy a different device to plug the Wan into? 

I'm a pretty sophisticated computer user, and I would like the answer
to start with an understanding of whether all routers are the same
when dealing with a WAN and what my choices are.

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Clarification of Question by sethgodin-ga on 20 Jan 2005 07:59 PST

Thanks so much for your suggestion!

After checking the DNS entries, I decided to spend the 30 minutes it
takes to get skycasters tech guys on the phone. The answer is, alas,
the speed of light. The latency is due to the fact that I'm busy
waiting for the signal to go to outer space and then come back

nothing to be done about it, I'm afraid. I have to cancel this question.

thanks!

I once had a similiar problem when I had entered an incorrect primary
DNS on the router. Every time I would open a web page, the router
would try to get the IP for the page from the incorrect primary DNS
first, timeout, and then succesfully get it from the correct secondary
DNS - every page would open with a delay of a second or so. Perhaps it
would be useful to check this, and also if the computers are using the
router as the DNS server, to try to set the computers to use the ISPs
DNS directly and look if anything changes.