Maybe SSH on DigitalOcean is just really slow then. I moved my Linode from New Jersey to the maligned Fremont DC because the difference in ping was noticeable after I moved across the country. A Linode SSH session on a decent network is so snappy it feels like the box is on your home network (fast Vim editing and irssi sessions are possible because of the low latency).

Oh, SSH. I thought you meant ping (my home server has a latency of 0.3 ms, which is hard to beat even in the same city).