1MB v 2MB - much of a difference for home user? - Completed!

probe

The more users you have in your house, the more you will benefit from a faster download speed. With a 20 Mbits/sec connection you won't notice two or three others at the same location downloading large files and/or watching video or IP intensive gaming while you are browsing.

If you want faster browsing go for the ISP offering the lowest contention ratio.

If you connect to your home machine via a VPN (eg to help keep your laptop secure while using Wifi in a hotel or other public location) pick an ISP with at least 1 Mbits/sec up and downstream.

probe

MunsterCycling

blorg wrote:

This is not really the case, your 1mb broadband will be far more of a bottleneck than your 11/54mb wireless (realistically 5/24mb or so after protocol overhead.) 4 people simultaneously will not be a problem for WiFi, no way.

4 people normal web surfing I doubt anyone would notice the difference.

As Do-More says, Skype is a different matter and has the potential to cause problems. P2P will be the same. The issue here is _not_ actually so much the downloading but the uploading; Skype and P2P can tend to grab all of it and the connection goes to hell. Best use clients such as Azureus that have bandwidth limiting options built in, or alternatively use a third party limiter. I am very happy with NetLimiter myself; you can install this on each computer and limit the up rate to something less than the total for your connection.

Exactly, the problem here is Skype and its bandwidth eating tendencies. Four users just surfing would be no problem at all but throw a torrent, skype and browsing into the mix and it will be a different matter and seeing as the OP was asking about this thats why it'll be a problem.

Maybe move to Wireless, as the points here need more wireless centred anwers / experts?

MC

blorg

MunsterCycling wrote:

Exactly, the problem here is Skype and its bandwidth eating tendencies. Four users just surfing would be no problem at all but throw a torrent, skype and browsing into the mix and it will be a different matter and seeing as the OP was asking about this thats why it'll be a problem.

Maybe move to Wireless, as the points here need more wireless centred anwers / experts?

MC

I should have clarified - the problems caused by Skype will have _nothing_ to do with the wireless connection (around 5mbs even if you are using the old 802.11b) and everything to do with the fact that you have only 128k up on your broadband connection. The wireless is going to be between 40 times faster (if using b) and 192 times faster (if using g) than your broadband upload speed. The wireless will NOT be the bottleneck, there really is no wireless issue here.

EDIT: I have around seven devices on a (802.11b) wireless network and have used wireless networks with far more, and I can assure you, the network is faster than my 3mb broadband and there is _no_ difference with regard to internet access between the devices on the wireless and the devices on the wired ethernet. There _is_ a pronounced difference when it comes to transferring files _between_ the computers however (as you would expect.)

blorg

probe wrote:

If you connect to your home machine via a VPN (eg to help keep your laptop secure while using Wifi in a hotel or other public location) pick an ISP with at least 1 Mbits/sec up and downstream.

I have 384k up and find it more than fast enough for RDP/VNC in to my home server; 384 is a lot nicer than the 128k I had before though (in particular, RDP is still usable while running P2P apps, which it wasn't really before.) 1Mbit synchronous is quite difficult to find unless you are going for the likes of Irish Broadband, which I don't think anyone would recommend over DSL.