Christian,
Why does the dongle ping via the US? If you can't reconfigure that, consider swapping it for an ordinary wireless dongle accessing via your own router as Al suggested. If the issue is that it's a 3G dongle so your people can roam free, I'd give the vendor a chance but warn them performance isn't acceptable if data is traversing the ocean for no purpose. If they're the only option, then you've hit one of the reasons why mobile apps need to be able to cache locally: because even if you're in New York cell data still isn't all that reliable when you're on the hoof. If it's in VFP, I'd check out Lianja as one way to make best use of your existing code investment... after making absolutely sure the international ping really cannot be eliminated.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1