Asking for Help (for someone else)

[SpyPirates]

Hey all, so my friend has this problem with his internet.

He lives in a rural town and only has one internet option, DSL.  He also has 5 other family members who regularly use the internet, surfing the web, playing online games, and playing Xbox live.

So what I was wondering, for my friend, is whether it's possible that all the people on the internet at the same time could cause a decrease in internet speeds (causing lag on video games, etc.)  AND ALSO if this could be fixed by buying another internet subscription & router (or w/e DSL uses to connect).

So is it possible that I-- i mean my friend, could do this, even if it might be pretty expensive?

[Azzaboi]

Get a good router and setup QOS (quality of service) for application and surfing priorities. It would resolve online game not lagging with others surfing the web, etc, but 6 users all accessing at the same time would still slow it down.

Unfortunately DSL relies heavy of the quality of the line for performance. Pick up a phone, dial a number and listen for static - it's a killer for speed. Rural towns normally have this issue.

Buying another internet subscription and router wouldn't work unless you also had another line. Have you ever thought about satellite?

On the news this guy once setup fiber optics underground with a tractor for his rural town's only router that lives in a barn. Now that's high speed internet for all!

[rthompson80819]

What is both the advertised and actual speed of the DSL connection?

Here is one site to check actual speeds.

http://www.speedtest.net/

[BC_Programmer]

Pick up a phone, dial a number and listen for static

It's ringing! It's ringing!

haha, couldn't help myself

Anyway, router-based QOS is probably the best bet in this case.

[Azzaboi]

It's ringing! It's ringing!

haha, couldn't help myself

haha  , but seriously dialing one number won't ring... it's to cancel the dial tone so you can clearly hear just the static. Dialing 136 (pulse) or 137 (dial) and hanging up here in NZ will call you back to test the line, lots of fun for a prank too.

[tsarles]

Ok, yes, you could get a 2nd line, but you won't be able to straight up double the internet speed.

What you would need to end up doing is a load sharing setup. It will defiantly be faster, but it won't be able to split the load at the packet level. Instead, you can either set it to split the load by protocol. for example, games go over one line, and web surfing over another.
Or have it split the load by the socket in a round robin fassion. Example, first person to use the internet goes over one connection, second over the other, and back and forth alternating the load as evenly as it can.

You can get a load balancing router that will do this for a couple hundred bucks.

but... short of that, you might consider QoS as people are suggesting.

[BC_Programmer]

Instead, you can either set it to split the load by protocol. for example, games go over one line, and web surfing over another.

Games use the TCP protocol.
so does web surfing.

You realize that the router only knows about TCP and UDP, right? It doesn't treat HTTP any different then other TCP/IP traffic. You could prioritize ports 80 through 90 though, which would have a similar effect. (except when browsing through FTP sites)