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.