A method to increase the yum download speed is to install the yum-plugin-fastestmirror yum plugin. While this in itself increases the download speeds and decreases the download times, there is yet another plugin to be added.

An article titled, Turbo Charge Yum with Fastest Mirror and AxelGet Plugins, provided the foundation for this script to simplify the installation and configuration of these plugins.

#!/bin/bash
# Description: Turbo Charge yum with fastest mirror and AxelGet plugins

# Download and install the rpmforge repository
if [ $(arch) = "i686" ]; then
# 32-bit
wget http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el6/en/i386/rpmforge/RPMS/rpmforge-release-0.5.3-1.el6.rf.i686.rpm
yum localinstall -y rpmforge-release-0.5.3-1.el6.rf.i686.rpm
else
# 64-bit
wget http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el6/en/x86_64/rpmforge/RPMS/rpmforge-release-0.5.3-1.el6.rf.x86_64.rpm
yum localinstall -y rpmforge-release-0.5.3-1.el6.rf.x86_64.rpm
fi

yum install -y yum-plugin-fastestmirror axel

# Install AxelGet plugins
curl -o /etc/yum/pluginconf.d/axelget.conf http://yum-axelget.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/axelget.conf
curl -o /usr/lib/yum-plugins/axelget.py http://yum-axelget.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/axelget.py

Once installed, if you should do a yum update, the process should be considerably quicker.