i have two machines running through a netgear rt-314 cable router,
to a us robotics cmx cable modem, to rcn cable.  both machines run
rh6.2, in very similar, though obviously not identical setups.

problem 1: pinging between the local stuff is ok at 1ms or so.
           pinging remote stuff looks ok at 10-15ms or so on machine 2
           but from machine 1, the pinging times go up in arithmetic
           progression.  e.g.:

PING 207.172.3.8 (207.172.3.8) from 192.168.0.3 : 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from ns1.dns.rcn.net (207.172.3.8): icmp_seq=0 ttl=252 time=11.6 ms
64 bytes from ns1.dns.rcn.net (207.172.3.8): icmp_seq=1 ttl=252 time=5022.1 ms
64 bytes from ns1.dns.rcn.net (207.172.3.8): icmp_seq=2 ttl=252 time=10023.1 ms
64 bytes from ns1.dns.rcn.net (207.172.3.8): icmp_seq=3 ttl=252 time=15022.8 ms
64 bytes from ns1.dns.rcn.net (207.172.3.8): icmp_seq=4 ttl=252 time=20019.5 ms
64 bytes from ns1.dns.rcn.net (207.172.3.8): icmp_seq=5 ttl=252 time=25023.2 ms

--- 207.172.3.8 ping statistics ---
37 packets transmitted, 7 packets received, 81% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 11.6/15020.4/30020.9 ms

problem 2: machine 1 can telnet to machine 2 ok, but telnetting to machine
           1 from machine 2 produces error:

Trying 192.168.0.3
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused

Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags   MSS Window  irtt Iface
192.168.0.0     *               255.255.255.0   U         0 0          0 eth0
192.168.0.0     *               255.255.255.0   U         0 0          0 eth0
127.0.0.0       *               255.0.0.0       U         0 0          0 lo
default         netgear.moylan. 0.0.0.0         UG        0 0          0 eth0

hosts, .xhosts, .rhosts all identical, and include both machines

any ideas as to what is different (i.e. screwed up)?

tia,

dan