I live in Antwerp, Belgium, and have the same issue. Just signed up and can't connect to the server because the Second Life boot-up hangs at the "waiting for regional handshake" stage and then tells me there seems to be no internet connection.
I've ran speed-tests at Speedtest.net and these are the results:
Local (Brussels server): Ping: 35ms / 19.02mbps Down / 1.88mbps Up
Arizona (Phoenix server): Ping 374ms / 2.65mbps Down / 0.97mbps Up
So, for me it's clearly a distance issue...