Local Replica v server based

Hi all,

Given the following scenario…

  1. Mail database is located on a server in another country connected by 2Mb line

  2. When sending, for example, a 10Mb email, it takes about 8 minutes for it to send directly from the mail client(as opposed to seconds when sent using a local server).

  3. Sending the same email using a local replica and setting the replicator to send mail immediately if 1 pending, it takes less than a minute.

Why should that be, it seems odd that the functionality is there to do it that quickly with the replicator but not sending it directly. Does anyone have a workaround for this. It seems a bit of a backward step to have to create local replicas on desktop machines.

Thanks in advance