Internet is a shared house

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Hi guys. I was wondering if any of you guys could possibly help with this. I know a little about computers, but when it comes to internet and wireless connections I'm completely lost.

I've recently moved in to a shared house in London with 5 other people. The house already had BT wireless broadband set up, but as I had a PC with no wireless card I asked if I could move the router (standard BT Home Hub) up to my room and thus have a wired connection. They all said that was fine so on we went. I found the internet to be extremely slow though. Browsing was ok, but I couldn't play games online. My house mate upstairs today came to me and said the same thing, that the internet was going really slow and he was having trouble doing anything. He said he downloads a lot and streams live TV, which at first made me think surely he was the problem? He started explaining that because my computer was the only device with a wired connection, I was using more bandwidth than everyone else and that I should look to buy a wireless dongle.

Basically I have no idea if this is true or if he just wants me to stop using the wired connection. Our internet is pretty terrible anyway. The average speed test showed a download speed of 3.0mb and an upload speed of 0.3mb (which is surely awful?). Would me switching to wireless make any difference? Or is his downloading causing more of a problem? If it is I would like to know a way of actually explaining this to him, as at the moment I have no clue.

Anyway, if you got through that wall of text congratulations and thanks!
 
Look to see if infinity is available in your area, we've gone from 4 people sharing a similar connection to yours, i'm guessing you're students so probably in ex-council houses with dire bt lines. We got an upgrade for -40p a month on our current bill and I got 63mb/s on steam yesterday as we're sat on the exchange.

Back to your original post, it uses no more bandwidth than wireless..or very little, its the tasks themselves like streaming, torrenting that make the difference, not wifi vs ethernet.

BTs service fluctuates MASSIVELY for us even on fibre, it gets to the point where even bbc news suffers..
 
do the speed test from your pc and then his, if the result is the same then the wifi is not a bottleneck.

had the same problem a while back when i was at uni, we all used wires though, but i had the benefit of having the router in my room so just pulled out the other wires when i had too much lag :)
 
tell that house mate that he is a fool, just because you are plugged in doesn't = you hogging all the bandwidth.. unless u have utorrent on all day
 
Sounds like someone's using torrents. Totally cripples connection sharing like this in my experience.
 
send a letter to your own house from your isp warning of torrenting and how there will be a fine then see how much better your internet gets
 
If you're getting a speed test of 3mb whilst somebody is streaming or downloading at the same time, it's no wonder the connection is terrible.

It won't much difference if you're wired or wireless, its just latency (time it takes to send information from the router to PC). As long as the other 4 receive a strong wireless signal there's no reason to go wireless yourself.

But with 5 sharing a 3mb connection, you certainly need to upgrade, which will mean the 5 of you paying more money towards it.. Expect to be told "it was fine before you moved the router" arguments, and how it's all your fault.

edit: You don't NEED a wireless card to receive a wireless connection, most modern motherboards have this built in. You must have a really old PC if it doesn't support it!
 
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edit: You don't NEED a wireless card to receive a wireless connection, most modern motherboards have this built in. You must have a really old PC if it doesn't support it!

Only the top end ones, don't think I've ever had a motherboard with built in wireless. Besides a HTPC board
 
I can not see it mentioned, but I take it you are using an extension lead from the main socket?

If so check you lead and connection, as if they were not having problems before this may be the issue.
 
The router was plugged in to the wall socket downstairs and now it's plugged in to a wall socket in my room. I don't know if that will have made a difference? I did actually email the landlady about infinity. I remember back at home years ago we hit broadband when it first came out. 4 years later we upgraded to a much faster speed and it worked out cheaper. I don't think my wired connection is the problem because my housemate said it had been really slow all week, but my PC hasn't been on since Sunday. I just need to phrase it nicely that his activities are hogging the connection.
 
edit: You don't NEED a wireless card to receive a wireless connection, most modern motherboards have this built in. You must have a really old PC if it doesn't support it!

The complete opposite - only specific high end boards will have a wireless card built in.
 
I would bet on it being moving the router away from the main phone socket.

Its probably because you are using an extension or the connections/cable from the main point to the extension socket are crap.

Only thing you can do is speed test at both locations.


Oh BTW save yourself a headache and get a USB WiFi adapter for 6 quid. If its still slow you need a better net package.
 
1/ What exchange are you connected to? (link)

2/ Log in to your router and copy & paste the line stats; attenuation, SNR, downstream and upstream sync rates, etc.

3/ Move the router back to the original socket (probably the master socket) and repeat #2.

This would give us all a better insight to be able to help you. :) #2 will show us the difference between your extension socket router stats and when plugged into the main socket.
 
Where exactly in the router settings would I find those stats? I tried to log in to it the other day but the password wasn't the default one for BT home hubs. I suppose I could just reset it?

The other stuff I'll do when I get home. Thanks to everyone who has helped so far.
 
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