on virgin media (50Mbit) in the UK the updates through itunes at 6-9pm we painfully slow, I used the direct links I posted on the iOS5 board and had both updates in about 10mins, but as it turned out I didn't update straight away as I went out, when I got back at 1am the downloads took 3mins through itunes and the updates were painless so the servers must have settled down by then.
none of the rest of the internet was slow just the updates through itunes were.