Another option is if you can use pull replication (the subscriber has to be full SQL, or MSDE 2000, not SQL express).

Basically you create the snapshot, zip the files, and copy them over the wan. Once you have gotten the files in place, create the subscription, and set the snapshot location to a local directory on the subscriber. Unfortunately with SQL 2005 and up you can't do this when you are setting up replication, and have to quickly do it after you create the subscription, and open the subscriber properties, and change the snapshot location to the alternate location. We do this over slow links