Previous firmware force the config to 100Mbs and FullDuplex mode, this likely work most of the time.
New firmware does “Auto-Negotiation” which take a bit more time.
Time to finish is different on each case, hub…, most of time is 1-2 seconds as we tested.
We are currently testing with no cable connected. Could that be why?
It could be.
Is there a possibility we can have this as a setting?
When developing,we usually don’t have any cable connected and it’s frustrating to wait this long everytime.
We cant just comment out the enable line either, because then any code referencing network related stuff will crash…
Just tested and it is indeed quicker with a cable in it.
Unfortunately no API or setting to change this behavior for now.
We may check cable connect before start Auto-Negotiation, but so far not plan for next release yet.
Could it be possible to add this to the next release planning then? 
I’ll send over some beer 
Will discuss internally and back to you soon.