Whichever internet provider I am connected to, it takes literally ages to download even small attachments from emails. The preparation stage lasts sometimes 10 minutes to just download 500 KB. It happens across various IMAP servers, Gmail including. My internet speed is 50 Mbit/sec, so it cannot be the bottle neck. Would anyone know this problem?
I already answered this here: Very Slow Download of Video Attachments - #7 by Gary
While I was commenting about Yahoo! accounts, it should work for others.