Currently RHEL does not include the yum-fastestmirror plugin. This makes sense as long as yum is only using with RHN; hower once other repositories, like EPEL, are in use, it would be nice to be able to use yum-fastestmirror. I already filed a similar RFE against EPEL - bug 457978. It would have made more sense to include yum-fastestmirror in EPEL instead of RHEL, however since this plugin is a part of the yum-utils package that is already a part of RHEL, including it in EPEL is problematic per bug 457978 comment #1.
Given that there a few plugins we don't distribute in RHEL, I think the correct fix is to have an EPEL yum-utils build that just produces the sub-packages we don't have in RHEL. However I think the reason fastestmirror wasn't included by default was: 1) It wasn't as well tested/fixed as it is now. 2) RHEL/RHN doesn't use it. 3) MirrorManager should (hopefully) eventually obviate the need for it. #1 isn't true anymore, so I think I'm going to include it for 5.3 (although not force it like CentOS).
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux maintenance release. Product Management has requested further review of this request by Red Hat Engineering, for potential inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Update release for currently deployed products. This request is not yet committed for inclusion in an Update release.
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on therefore solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2009-0227.html