GET & DELETE using file_get_contents() very slow - php

Question

I use the file_get_contents() from server M to get the response from server X. The result was success but it take too long.
$url = "http://10.20.30.40";
$opts = array('http' =>
array(
'method' => 'GET',
'header' => 'Connection: close\r\n'
)
);
$context = stream_context_create($opts);
$result = file_get_contents($url, false, $context);
$result = json_decode($result);
$response = parse_http_response_header($http_response_header);
print_r($result);
print_r($response);
/////// below is just function to parse the response ///////
function parse_http_response_header(array $headers)
{
$responses = array();
$buffer = NULL;
foreach ($headers as $header)
{
if ('HTTP/' === substr($header, 0, 5))
{
// add buffer on top of all responses
if ($buffer) array_unshift($responses, $buffer);
$buffer = array();
list($version, $code, $phrase) = explode(' ', $header, 3) + array('', FALSE, '');
$buffer['status'] = array(
'line' => $header,
'version' => $version,
'code' => (int) $code,
'phrase' => $phrase
);
$fields = &$buffer['fields'];
$fields = array();
continue;
}
list($name, $value) = explode(': ', $header, 2) + array('', '');
// header-names are case insensitive
$name = strtoupper($name);
// values of multiple fields with the same name are normalized into
// a comma separated list (HTTP/1.0+1.1)
if (isset($fields[$name]))
{
$value = $fields[$name].','.$value;
}
$fields[$name] = $value;
}
unset($fields); // remove reference
array_unshift($responses, $buffer);
return $responses;
}
Is there any suggestion or function option to get the response (the content and the response code) faster?
(NOTE: I am not allowed to install cURL, so please gimme other option)