cURL really slow

Question

Does anybody know why could cURL under php5 be so damn slow to fail even at 45s timeout, downloading a few kb file on a speedO\'light server?

The code is here as req

Answer 1

When I set a CONNECTtimeout, I get faster response. Including this option:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT,1)