This gets stranger....
I thought that I'd give ipkg another chance to work from the net and it installed a package fine, next one failed so I resorted to runnign wget myself, that started failing, stalling and running slow.
To check if it was at my end or the feed end I did the same get from my desktop, the file came down instantly. I then tried scp'ing the file across and that started stalling as well.
I've tried different network cables and different network ports, doesn't seem to affect it. ssh runs fine, i haven't notice anything wrong but then speed isn't usually an issue with ssh.
I thought about trying a proxy but that wouldn't help with scp being slow.
I'll keep diging, any help or suggestions appreciated.