How many computers and/or iPads could connect to a single Internet home service before it slows down to a crawl?
I have Internet service from Clear, unlimited and as far as I know it’s 4G. We have two laptops and one Sony PS3 which we use to stream movies and TV shows from Netflix and Hulu. We don’t really use them altogether at the same time to stream. I would be surfing and my SO would be streaming without experiencing a slow-down.
However, the landlord’s kid upstairs has a new iPad and my SO gave her parents our network PW. During times when she goes to the net, and we are streaming a movie and surfing at the same time, would our signal’s speed be affected-?
If that happens, how would I know if it’s her iPad causing it or my internet service’s speed fluctuations-?
I won’t mind sharing as long as our normal set-up does not get affected. Thanks.
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We have three attached to AT@T and Yahoo. All three online at the same time has had no slow down time. Having four may be another story, altogether.
Best bet is have all four online at the same time and monitor the results of any slowdown time.
It depends on how much you pay for the service and the router and switch you use.
The first sign of trouble would be if the streaming video or TV starts intermittently pausing to download more data. If you don’t see that, then you have plenty of capacity to cover the 4 users. To know if your connection is solid and fast, test it when only you are online. There are sites you can use to test and report your download and upload speed and ping time. Try SpeedTest.net but you might want to resist the tune up and subscription offers they toss at you. :-)
Depends on teh connection speed and what you stream. I have a 7Mbps DSL pipe and do not+ stream HD, so I never run into issues with four devices going. Back when we had three PCs sharing a 1Mbps pipe though, we always has issues, especially since our roommate liked to torrent; torrenting hogs bandwidth and absolutely murders latency/ping.
Does the kid stream a lot of video? Do they torrent? I don’t know if iPads can, but Androids can.
@jerv You lost me at Depends. Ha ha. No, really, you lost me at “torrent”. I guess that’s heavier than streaming-? I hope the iPad does not torrent in this case. Really.
Thanks all for your replies!!! You’re great! ( Ahh, but you know that already, sheesh )
My home network has a 3.5mbps download speed and will easily run 4 computers as long as no-one is streaming video.
Torrenting is file-sharing. A lot of people do it, especially kids looking for music. But as I said, I don’t know if the iPad has an app for that.
The thing about file-sharing is that there is a lot of uploading. That means that when you click on a link to go to another page, it may be a little bit before your request is uploaded to the server to even tell them where you want to go. Also, there are plenty of network requests, which causes your router to try to split its attention between thousands of things instead of a small handful; that means that anything relying on quick responses (like an online shooting game where 0.1 second means the difference between life and death) becomes impossible.
The short version is that yes, it is heavier than streaming.
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