It's not a dns issue because simply removing SSL from the picture works fine. Http://exchsrv2.cs.washington.edu = instant https://exchsrv2.cs.washington.edu/exchange = delay. If it was a DNS issue, it would be slow for both. Even after you connect, and get a DNS cache, it is still slow. Plus, I added an entry directly to my HOST file. 3rd, I have done a netmon capture, and you can see where the delays occur, and it's not the initial portion of the conversation I take ISP out of the picture by doing it at work, asking co workers with DSL to try. I have comcast cable at home, and so do about 20% of the other users on our network. All comcast users report problems, everyone else works fine. I did do a network monitor capture, I just took a deeper look and it appears there is some connection trying to happen to destination port 443, which I know COMCAST is blocking, so the problem is related to that I imagine. I have 2 exchange servers, one is win2k & echc2k the other is win2k3 & ech2k3. Some users on each (planning to move all users to new one, once I solve this problem). Connecting to the older exchsrv works fine, even with the SSL. Connecting to the new one has delays. Is it safe to assume I have something misconfigured, that is telling OWA to authenticate via port 443, where as the older one is not? I will look into it. Tony