router speed

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I have a linksys g2.4 ghz wireless router.
My question is this. In the evenings when my son is on the desktop, my computor slows down alot.
Is this because of the router? if so what do i need to get to speed me up. Also My computer is much faster in hotel rooms than at home particularly retriving emails.
Thanks
 
dunno.
Cable. During the day it goes pretty good, slows down when all the school kids get out. part of the problem i am sure.

"your son is looking at alot of data dense sites (myspace, etc.) or downloading a bunch of music and/or videos."
True. Does a better/faster router solve this?
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It's not a router issue so much as a connection issue. Your router can push enough data to run three or four computers handily, the issue is the connection can maybe handle two or (at peak times) fewer.

DSL doesn't slow down like cable, there may be a higher bandwidth package available, or something like Verizon FIoS offer significant gains.
 
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Some routers are [censored] and WILL slow down the connection. I replaced my router with a Linux box and got about twice the speed.

Quote:
DSL doesn't slow down like cable


Because there's a dedicated connection back to the CO for every house, right?

What do you suppose happens at the CO...? All those connections are aggregated into one, and that's where the slowdown can and does occur.
 
Originally Posted By: brianl703
Some routers are [censored] and WILL slow down the connection. I replaced my router with a Linux box and got about twice the speed.

Quote:
DSL doesn't slow down like cable


Because there's a dedicated connection back to the CO for every house, right?

What do you suppose happens at the CO...? All those connections are aggregated into one, and that's where the slowdown can and does occur.



Depends on the ISP and how large a trunk they've run to the CO.......
 
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL

Depends on the ISP and how large a trunk they've run to the CO.......


The first DSL I ever had, the ISP I was using had a single T1 as their upstream. I have no idea what their connection to GTE's frame relay cloud was. Oh yea, the committed information rate for the frame relay connection my DSL was mapped to was about 1/4 of my upstream speed.

When that ISP went [censored]-up I went to cable (which was then available) and haven't looked back.
 
Originally Posted By: brianl703
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL

Depends on the ISP and how large a trunk they've run to the CO.......


The first DSL I ever had, the ISP I was using had a single T1 as their upstream. I have no idea what their connection to GTE's frame relay cloud was. Oh yea, the committed information rate for the frame relay connection my DSL was mapped to was about 1/4 of my upstream speed.

When that ISP went [censored]-up I went to cable (which was then available) and haven't looked back.

That is not a DSL problem, that is an ISP problem. You can get bad ISP with DSL or cable. I would ask around and compare the DSL and cable services if you have that option in your area. It sounds to me like the original problem is lack of bandwidth coming to the house, but there is no way to tell without some testing. If the router is less than a couple years old it probably has the horsepower to handle the data.
 
It was a combination of things, GTE's poor implementation of DSL (Fujitsu Orckit) and a fly-by-night ISP.

As far as routers go, Verizon specifically states to use only the router they supply for best performance with FIOS.

With my cablemodem service, any router with a 10megabit WAN port is going to slow things down.

As far as the original problem, are both your computer and your son's computer connected via wireless? If, for some reason, one of them is running at a lower data rate due to a signal problem, that will slow things down. If any wireless device on your network is 802.11b instead of 802.11g (or 802.11n) that will slow things down too.
 
BELL (who my ISP rents line space from and the rights to use BELL's DSL) uses bonded OC12's as their backbone for their DSL service. It's always very quick.
 
I'm on Microwave Internet. (Big-arse antenna on my TV tower that beams the signal to/from a receiver tower 20KM away) I have a Linksys 54WRT-GS router and we regularly have 3 laptops, and 2 desktops running it. 1.5MPS Download 512K/Upload. Works great for us... Oh yeah and we also have a VOIP phone we use sometimes and it never distorts the sound. (Mountain Cable is the ISP)
 
For what it's worth, I find most consumer routers can be brought to a crawl pretty quickly if one or more parties are downloading torrents with many, many IP connections. Every day before my parents Skype me with video and audio to talk to the grandkid, I have to shut down my torrent program -- and the firmware I run my router with (DD-WRT) supports QOS! (Quality Of Service is supposed to prioritize internet traffic based on application or port number, or IP address as assigned by the router... I wonder if the OP made a pot of coffee, downloaded DD-WRT and set up QOS and/ or bandwidth quotas for the router's clients the issues would be resolved to an extent?)
 
The QoS in this application cannot prioritize incoming traffic. By the time your router receives the the traffic, it has already passed the bottleneck which is your internet connection. The only thing QoS on your router can do is prioritize outgoing traffic.

I'm in the same situation. I have a Linksys WRT-54G running Tomato. It handles torrent traffic somewhat better than OEM firmware did, but I still shut the torrent traffic down when getting on Skype, just like you do.
 
I run torrent traffic, VOIP phone and general surfing all at the same time without any problems... My VOIP phone doesn't even distort.

Maybe I have a really good router? (QOS is turned off in it)
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
The QoS in this application cannot prioritize incoming traffic. By the time your router receives the the traffic, it has already passed the bottleneck which is your internet connection. The only thing QoS on your router can do is prioritize outgoing traffic.

I'm in the same situation. I have a Linksys WRT-54G running Tomato. It handles torrent traffic somewhat better than OEM firmware did, but I still shut the torrent traffic down when getting on Skype, just like you do.


You must be using a < v.5 firmware, as Tomato does not support anything after that. I think it is (read; *was*) those older ones that gave the WRT-54G the stellar reputation is has.
 
Originally Posted By: brianl703
Some routers are [censored] and WILL slow down the connection. I replaced my router with a Linux box and got about twice the speed.

Quote:
DSL doesn't slow down like cable


Because there's a dedicated connection back to the CO for every house, right?

What do you suppose happens at the CO...? All those connections are aggregated into one, and that's where the slowdown can and does occur.




Most $80+ router can handle 10Mb/s easily, good enough for home use.

Cable has a high bandwidth pipe across the entire neighborhood. A neighbor running 10 download at once will slow the whole neighborhood down (don't laugh, I used to do that in college). So in some college towns, it is a no-no to use cable. DSL choke the bandwidth hogs by limiting them to the speed they buy, rather than having them slow the entire pipe down.

If it is really your son, you can get a router that support DDWRT or other open source firmware that has bandwidth control, or ask him to reduce his download to a certain limit in the download software(I set mine to 80kb/s down and 15kb/s up total).
 
Originally Posted By: greenaccord02
That's probably because your son is looking at alot of data dense sites

LOL.gif
 
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