Right now, I'm in a restaurant on the beach. Internet is pretty good here (and everywhere else I've been -- way better than the average coffee shop / hotel / etc internet in the US). I use StrongVPN and haven't had any problems yet. I Skype and watch Netflix all the time with no issues at all.
It's slow as in you're not going to find a 20 megabit connection all to yourself. Normal speed is probably closer to 1 megabit, but you can easily get a bit better than that these days (I'm on 5).
Here's a speed test (while off my VPN and at a restaurant rather than my house): http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3099024113