Is Each Conceptual Operation A Single Method Call?

An interface that is good for a local object because it has many small methods might be awful for a remote object because method calls are expensive.
For a remote object try to make a method call for each "usage" of the object by grouping together smaller methods into one.
If implementing an iterator, it should have an argument that tells it how many to fetch at a time. These would be stored in the local iterator object and handed out one-by-one with getNext call.