I'm not sure if this answers your question, but I was connecting to an SQL
server thousands of miles away without any problem, inserting, updating
1000s of rows.  Since each row was just an entry in a library database (ie.
no large blob fields), the response time ok (especially since, unlike a web
page, no images were sent back and forth).

If I were you, I would write a simple winform app to check.

Scott