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Sidd breaks it down:

Ping times really test the network paths between the pinging machine and the server. Ohio state has a 100Mbps ATM connection to mci,but when the mci routers at Willow Springs throws a fit, (typically every day round 1900) all connections to sprint connected links suck.

This cannot be controlled by reengineering the server. That being said, VRML does tax the server more than regular html docs. But the rite way to test this is on a controlled network.

We have our own ethernet that we can subject to varying loads and horton can use his machine as a viewer. Also we can stress the server over the ethernet far more than over a t1. So I think lets press on and, we can do the testing with hortons machine as we go...

Sidd continues:

Membrane is on a point to point t1, 1.544 Mbps. this is not nearly ethernet speeds. However we have an internal ethernet that we can experiment with.

Oak speaks...

I think the more important point was the low number of packets lost on top of a good speed.
The problem is this, VRML takes FOREVER to download. A slow connection, or one that has high packet loss will take an already slow medium and make it last forever. (I don't know how many people tried to look at a VRML file on the internet and gave after two minutes of downloading because only a frame work was visible while the images were downloading.)
This will be especialy true for our 14.4 friends.
(Maybe we could have people download all the files to the hard drive?
However, the point of the test was this, the ethernet connection that membrane uses is fast and predictable.
(I pinged us about 7 more times the rest of the night and things only got better.)
Other VRML sights I tried turned out to be hellishly slow. At least one of these sights was using a T3.

My question was this. If we start doing a lot of VRML, VRML lovers WILL find and visit our site.
Can the connection handle the load?
The ping suggests that it will handle quite a bit more than it does now, but will it hold under the stress
of say a couple more thousand people using multiple connection browsers? I say this because the browser we use here at school, and the new ones that we are designing for ourselves, run up to 25 or 30 connections at once for VRML files. It does wonders for our downloading times, especially since you can download 300 jpeg's at once, but what will that do to your server if you get a lot of those kinds of connections?.

Netscape Beta three and three both are equipped with 3d modeling viewer capabilities, this stuff is about to get really popular.

Again, I say also, go for it. The load it will bring to your sight will be tremendous. Just be prepared for the possibility of REALLY slow down load times.

And the point is...