fsockopen doesn't time out for 10 minutes

I am calling fsockopen with a timeout parameter of 60 seconds. Despite the timeout value however fsockopen on some servers doesn't return for 10 to 13 minutes. The error given is usually "Connection timed out" and sometimes "No route to host". Is this much of a delay to be expected? Is there any way to have the script just give up on fsockopen after 60 seconds? The server OS is RedHat 6.2. Thanks! Lance