dsl bandwidth

[chadomaly]

With cable, if you use your upload capacity it negatively affects your downstream data flow. Does DSL behave this same way or can you use your maximum upload bandwidth without it killing your down rate?

 

[Lonyo]

I have found from personal experience that if I am uploading on my DSL at max rate, my download gets screwed totally.
I don't know why, but that's my experience.

 

[DaveSimmons]

My Qwest DSL is 256 up / 640 down, and when I'm uploading something it does seem to cut the download speed by that same 256 I'm already using.

 

[fuzzynavel]

I think when you download stuff your computer has to reply to the source and say "yes I recieved that packet, send me another" so if you are uploading heavily then your computer will have difficulty talking to your download server and so it will slow down.....

Massive oversimplification but (i think) essentially what goes on!

 

[Gurck]

When you're uploading at your max rate your download gets screwed - this is because to download you need to send out bits of data as well, and if you're at your very max u/l already these pieces of data get queued and take a bit longer to be sent. However, if you upload at just under (even by only 1-2 kBps) your max, you'll be fine. Most software involving upload knows this and has according settings to limit your u/l speed in options; BT clients, other p2p clients, etc. This is the case with most any connection, not just DSL. That said, certain types of connections may have 'shared' bandwidth. A friend of mine lives in the boonies and has I think a 384down/128up DSL connection. When he's uploading, even at ~100kbps, his download speed suffers accordingly.

 

[imported_Phil]

I have a 512/256kbps DSL connection here in the UK, and unless the upload is completely saturated, the download is not affected. However, RA (rate adaptive) DSL will throttle upload speed back to make sure that the download speed remains as high as possible, and sometimes vice versa.
With something like Azureus, I limit the upload rate to 25k/sec max (maximum is 30k/sec), and that ensures that the download rate is not castrated.