I'm using 2mbit dsl but the speed of the connection really won't make a difference here, the latency does and all dsl should have similiar latency.

It could indeed be a poor dsl connection, or maybe your setup.

Try pinging popular websites and seeing your response time.

If using windows XP go to start>run and type cmd.

Then type 'ping' followed by the website you want to ping.

Ping times will vary based on your connection, your location, the location of the website you're pinging and the current connection load of both ends.

Here are my times:
www.yahoo.com - 93ms
www.yahoo.co.uk - 18ms
I'm in the UK which explains the longer time to reach the .com.