It's been fine for me, only relatively slow, with timeouts sometimes. Perhaps you could check how you are routed out?

C:\>tracert www.gmail.com

Tracing route to googlemail.l.google.com [74.125.53.18]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  dc1.oldonyolaro.local [192.168.40.2]
  2    11 ms    19 ms     9 ms  10.32.0.1
  3    10 ms     7 ms    20 ms  ge-02-lfg1.accesskenya.com [196.207.31.33]
  4    50 ms     9 ms     9 ms  ge-02-cr1.accesskenya.com [196.207.31.81]
  5    48 ms   637 ms    43 ms  ge-00-er1.accesskenya.com [196.207.31.2]
  6   736 ms   524 ms   527 ms  213.255.211.73
  7   512 ms     *      521 ms  hsrp.gw.sky-vision.net [217.194.158.17]
  8   519 ms   812 ms   512 ms  GI0-1.gw1.dcm.sky-vision.net [213.255.203.1]
  9   660 ms   667 ms   700 ms  PO2-0.gw2.nyc.sky-vision.net [213.255.219.38]
 10   666 ms   657 ms     *     core1-0-0-8.lga.net.google.com [198.32.118.39]
 11   669 ms   661 ms   779 ms  216.239.49.217
 12   673 ms   662 ms   660 ms  209.85.255.139
 13   690 ms   687 ms   688 ms  209.85.251.233
 14   747 ms   892 ms   739 ms  72.14.233.116
 15     *      767 ms   744 ms  216.239.46.208
 16   748 ms   760 ms   769 ms  64.233.174.123
 17   748 ms   743 ms   749 ms  72.14.232.10
 18   779 ms   750 ms   781 ms  pw-in-f18.google.com [74.125.53.18]

Trace complete.

C:\>ping -n 20 www.gmail.com

Pinging googlemail.l.google.com [72.14.205.83] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=636ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=626ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=625ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=628ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=637ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=636ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=636ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=647ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=649ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=653ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=700ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=629ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=621ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=626ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=649ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=735ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=649ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=639ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=637ms TTL=242
Reply from 72.14.205.83: bytes=32 time=623ms TTL=242

Ping statistics for 72.14.205.83:
    Packets: Sent = 20, Received = 20, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 621ms, Maximum = 735ms, Average = 644ms