How to improve internet for 5 people?

[Canadian_Anders]

Issue: There are five students living in the house I am at and if someone is streaming or skyping, internet quality drastically decreases. We have a shared router (Dlink 816) and my desktop is the only wired connection. For example, if someone is facetiming while I play CSGO, my ping spikes to the heavens.

So how do I prevent the bandwidth from being used?

Do we need a better router? A better internet package (currently a 15/1 deal)? Something else completely?


I am looking for a solution where we can all use the internet without worrying about impacting each other's experiences. So no QoS or the likes. Hopefully a solution exists for us!

Thanks!

 

[USAFRet]

What speed do you pay for?

 

[DSzymborski]

15/1 for 5 people? There's no router in the world that can make that a good experience when five people are using it at the same time, especially the upload. Better internet package is the place to start.

 

[Canadian_Anders]

15 down, 1 up right now.

 

[rhysiam]

More bandwidth (as in, as faster internet plan) is always a good option if it's a possibility.

However, as two of the problem scenarios you cite are Skype and Facetime, then it's likely that your uploads are the problem, at least some of the time. If that's the case, QoS is actually a great solution. Most QoS solutions will continue to use just about all of your upload bandwidth, it's just that they'll prioritise certain applications or hosts. I hear you saying that you don't want to affect others, and that's valid, but if you set it up properly then it will have very little impact on anyone else. The actual amount of data required for online gaming is very small. Skype video or Facetime will easily be generating a hundred times the upload traffic of your CS:Go game. The issue, or course, is that the data is extremely time sensitive. So lets say, as a hypothetical example, a CSGo packet ends up in a queue behind a hundred Facetime packets, then you're going to experience lag. If your router is properly set up however to allow your CSGo packet to jump the queue and get sent ASAP, it'll only shuffle the Facetime packets back one spot, making no tangible difference to Facetime, but all the difference in the world to CSGo.

 

[USAFRet]

15 down, 1 up right now.

5 people = ~10 devices.
You need a bigger pipe into the house.

 

[Canadian_Anders]

Thanks for the speedy responses, everyone.

Thanks to Rhysiam for the explanation on QoS - apparently I did not quite understand the specifics of it. I'll give this a go and see if it makes a difference before jumping the gun on a more expensive internet package/router.

 

[rhysiam]

Thanks for the speedy responses, everyone.

Thanks to Rhysiam for the explanation on QoS - apparently I did not quite understand the specifics of it. I'll give this a go and see if it makes a difference before jumping the gun on a more expensive internet package/router.

For sure give it a try. Just to be clear, I do agree with others that QoS can only do so much, particularly if (when?) its your download link getting saturated. So you may very well find that you still need the faster link. But depending on what plans are available, if you're still limited to a few mbps upload, facetime and/or Skype video are very likely to saturate your improved uplink anyway, in which case you'll still need some form of QoS. So good plan to set up QoS in any case.