diff --git a/test/e2e/framework/networking_utils.go b/test/e2e/framework/networking_utils.go
index 0ce339842a7..7f507a8390f 100644
--- a/test/e2e/framework/networking_utils.go
+++ b/test/e2e/framework/networking_utils.go
@@ -292,13 +292,13 @@ func (config *NetworkingTestConfig) DialFromNode(protocol, targetIP string, targ
 	if protocol == "udp" {
 		// TODO: It would be enough to pass 1s+epsilon to timeout, but unfortunately
 		// busybox timeout doesn't support non-integer values.
-		cmd = fmt.Sprintf("echo 'hostName' | timeout -t 2 nc -w 1 -u %s %d", targetIP, targetPort)
+		cmd = fmt.Sprintf("echo 'hostName' | nc -w 1 -u %s %d", targetIP, targetPort)
 	} else {
 		ipPort := net.JoinHostPort(targetIP, strconv.Itoa(targetPort))
 		// The current versions of curl included in CentOS and RHEL distros
 		// misinterpret square brackets around IPv6 as globbing, so use the -g
 		// argument to disable globbing to handle the IPv6 case.
-		cmd = fmt.Sprintf("timeout -t 15 curl -g -q -s --connect-timeout 1 http://%s/hostName", ipPort)
+		cmd = fmt.Sprintf("curl -g -q -s --max-time 15 --connect-timeout 1 http://%s/hostName", ipPort)
 	}
 
 	// TODO: This simply tells us that we can reach the endpoints. Check that
diff --git a/test/e2e/network/network_policy.go b/test/e2e/network/network_policy.go
index 799d61c4d49..57bbd77922b 100644
--- a/test/e2e/network/network_policy.go
+++ b/test/e2e/network/network_policy.go
@@ -560,7 +560,7 @@ func createNetworkClientPod(f *framework.Framework, namespace *v1.Namespace, pod
 					Args: []string{
 						"/bin/sh",
 						"-c",
-						fmt.Sprintf("for i in $(seq 1 5); do wget -T 8 %s.%s:%d -O - && exit 0 || sleep 1; done; exit 1",
+						fmt.Sprintf("for i in $(seq 1 5); do curl -s -m 8 %s.%s:%d && exit 0 || sleep 1; done; exit 1",
 							targetService.Name, targetService.Namespace, targetPort),
 					},
 				},