use Net::FTP;

    my $ftphost      = 'ftp.ostrich.com';
    my $timeout      = 600;     # seconds, default is 120
    my $retries      = 5;

    for (1 .. $retries) {
        last if $ftp = Net::FTP->new("$ftphost", BlockSize => 20480, Timeout => $timeout);
    }
    die("Couldn't connect to $ftphost in $retries attempts: $@")  unless($ftp);
    ...