Question about sharing Broadband

[YorkieBen]

My parents are wanting to get a pc and also want to share the broadband connection that I use

anyway, I was wondering how it works with sharing broadband, i.e I have a 1Meg connection, if both of us were using it would it automatically Split the connection 50/50 (i.e. each have 512 download and 128 upload) or does it do it another way?

Because say for example I want to play on BF2 or use bittorrent whilst they are browsing on the net, can I still do this?

[aidanjt]

Most routers just pop packets on a que and fire them off in a First In, First Out (FIFO) manner.. so if your parents start uploading files onto multipule ftp servers (or multipule files on the same server), the bandwidth will be more or less split between connections.
So say your parents are uploading 3 files, and you're playing battlefield 2, thats 64kbps per connection, you'll only have 64kbps.. which is still playable

If they are downloading several files at the same time then they will saturate your upstream with ACK packets, as well as hogging all the download bandwidth.

There are a few different ways of managing the bandwidth however, one is to use a proxy server which has bandwidth throttling support, and configure their browser to use that, that'll limit how much data they can push/pull from the internet.. thats the easy way.

The other is using building a linux router box, use something like layer 7 filter to manage traffic.

Hope that helps some.

[Flibb]

If they are doing usual parenty things like email (witout monster atachments), looking at websites, etc it doesent make much difference to your gameplaying. Monster windows downloads etc will slow you down though. Dont worry about torrent type stuff as it sorts itself out and will speed up again once they stop downloading.

An all in one broadband modem / switch is better than sharing the connection through your PC, I have a wireless setup with a print server my wifes laptop and my rig, no problems with my speed in game when shes using her rig.

Stupid question to network type folks, would an older wireless connection effectively throttle the max speed of his parents computer? Not sure wht speed b is.

[Moby-Dick]

It's unlikely that regular browsing would affect any p2p or gaming ( although they might find browisng going a bit slow during a heavy p2p application )

A Social solution is easier for the novice to implementent than a QoS / bandwidth throttle

ie just ask your folks to avoid heavy downloading at certina times and you'll agree not to max the connection out with torrents. ( I'd also recomend setting your max speed in torrents to abuot 2/3rds of yourline speed ) ie 600k down and about 186 upload.