Weird. I live in Canada and never have that problem and my ps3 is connected through wifi. Firmware updates are usually done in a few minutes, most of the time spend is installing it.
Demos download just as fast on the ps3 as the 360, but on the ps3 it still needs to install them after downloading. (please fix this next gen)
Maybe you live far away from the server or there aren't many servers in your area for a lot of people?







