When to use compression?

[East Coast Coder]

I've read that compression can sometimes slow down a good connection. 
I use SSH over a DSL with about 70ms latency and about 750kbs
bandwidth.  I'm mainly doing console things, so bandwidth is not much
of an issue, but latency is a big one.  CPU does not seem to be a
bottleneck at either end.  Am I better off using compression or not?

(Normally, I turn it on, and notice that it says about a 50% compression ratio).

Thanks,
--ECC