better support for local security update proxies

[Jon Saints]

We are deploying more and more ubuntu machines at our
University in Malawi.  Our internet connection is via
satellite and is expensive so we are trying to be sure
that ubuntu updates are done efficiently.

Currently we are using apt-proxy to accomplish this,
but we are not finding it to be very robust (routinely
kills connection and doesn't do well when multiple
machines connect at same time).  

Its not just those of us behind lowband internet
connections that would find improved support for local
security proxies useful. I think any large scale
deployment of Ubuntu would be interested as well.

Are there any development efforts within Ubuntu
Community to improve support for local proxies for
security updates that we might be able to get involved
with? Or is improving apt-proxy the way to go?

Thanks for your thoughts.
Jon