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Will sharing slow down my Internet connection?

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Yes. Sharing resources does cause slower individual access. However, whether the slowdown is noticeable depends on many factors.

If you share a high-speed broadband internet connection you will rarely notice additional computers browsing, simply because they're not consuming the entire bandwidth, and even if they do, it is often for just a couple of seconds. Also, many web sites serve pages slower than your broadband connection can handle due to their load, internet congestion, etc. You will not notice any slowdown from VoIP calls, or audio streaming either, as they consume very little bandwidth.

You may experience some noticeable slowdown if some of the clients on your network are streaming video, especially High Definition movies, or if you are hosting some type of servers, such as P2P programs, or maxed out game servers. Some of those slowdowns will only be noticeable when your upstream bandwidth is filled up, then it is common for the connection to experience high latency, some packet loss, slowdowns, etc. This can somewhat be mitigated by using more recent routers with intelligent QoS settings that prioritize different types of traffic. Some of those routers also allow for limiting bandwidth per client, so that one PC can't consume all available bandwidth.

If you need helps setting up your NAT router, please check your model in our routers database, and ask questions in our forums.


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by kashifqzaidi - 2006-03-10 04:16
The question is so simple and so the answer is. Ofcourse if you share any of your resourses with other it'll have atleast some effect on the overall performance.
by . - 2006-10-04 14:32
not really...did u even read it? It says that most of the time it won't have ANY effect and only will if u use p2p programs (even then i imagine only if the person your connecting to has broadband), or hosting some web service
by snanes - 2006-10-08 18:10
I share a 10mb connection, and when someone is using limewire/bearshare etc. then it basically just absobs most of the connection...this is based on the fat *!%$ I live with who sits upstairs downloading the world 24/7. So if you are sharing with your dad it wont effect you, but if you're sharing with students, etc. who love downloading loads of stuff then it will affect you big time.
by mberberis - 2007-08-10 02:10
help!!! say i want to lag my internet so i can piss my sister and brother off. would using a p2p sharing program like bitlord, lag our whole internet if i download a whole bunch of stuff on bitlord and then let it upload/seed the stuff ?
by lostcowboy - 2007-08-10 19:01
Yep, that should piss them off, big time. Mom and Dad will likely get pissed too.
by anonymous - 2017-10-29 00:07
If you really want to piss them off, go into the settings of your router, and limit their bandwidth limit (around 25kps, its slow enough to annoy but fast enough to still work without a timeout), you need their mac address but you can also set who has priority internet access which is good if you're sharing internet.
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