I play with pings like this anyway! Thanks to the Atlantic
I've had to tether my N1 loads of times when my internet dies, and about all I can do with it is IRC and UrT.
If you've got a halfway decent signal, it's actually pretty playable, all things considered.
I've noticed Windows 7 is a bit of pain in the ass to USB tether at times, but setting up a wifi hotspot on my N1 seems to work a treat... except every time I do it, W7 thinks it's a completely new network ¬_¬ I dunno if wifi hotspot settings are in vanilla Android but it's definitely in CyanogenMod 7 if anyone's interested.