in reply to speeding up Net::FTP

You will need to provide a few more details about the nature of your application in order to get meaningful feedback. FTP is FTP -- there isn't much to set to change its behavior as a protocol.
  1. Are you making sure your system has optimal bandwidth from your network?
  2. Are your files compressed before your transfer?
  3. If your files are coming from/going to different systems on different networks, you could run transfers concurrently, using lots of different mechanisms