Yep, no getting around the fact that the signal has to travel much further then it would via land or radio based methods. Both WildBlue and HughesNet use geosynchronous satellites to save on cost. They sit 22,300 miles away, compared to satellites for the iridium phones at a low 485 miles. For perspective, the earth is about 25,000 miles around at the equator. So every time a data packet is sent over the WildBlue link, it travels the distance of almost 2 trips around the entire globe. Iridium satellite phone signals travel the distance of the length of California, plus a little over half of Oregon.

Iridium NEXT will have data support, but they don't start launching until 2015.

Satellite internet providers have tricks to accelerate web browsing, where they see the initial request come in on their side, and start also requesting all the pictures, and other page contents automatically. They then send that info right behind the initial request before even receiving the request from your computer. This helps browsing normal HTTP sites, but the slowdown comes right back for any HTTPS, or AJAX type of web activities.