Satellite-based internet access system with remote prefetching of inline objects of web pages

An internet access system, comprising:

• a first computer system that communicates locally with web browsers;
• and
• a second computer system that communicates with the first computer system over a satellite link, said second computer being connected to a wide area network;
• wherein the first and second computer systems run distributed proxy server software to allow the web browsers to communicate over the satellite link with web servers running on the wide area network;
• and wherein the distributed proxy server software implements an object prefetching process in which, when a web browser requests a web page that includes an inline object of at least one type, the inline object is prefetched by the second computer system and is transmitted over the satellite link to the first computer system for delivery to the web browser.

A method of retrieving a web page over a satellite link so as to reduce a page load time, the method comprising:

• receiving a request from a web browser for a web page;
• transmitting the request for the web page to an internet side of a satellite link;
• and
• on the internet side of the satellite link:
• (a) identifying an inline object of the web page, (b) prefetching the inline object over a wide area network from a server, and (c) transmitting the prefetched inline object over the satellite link from the internet side to a browser side.