I use a fiber optic SBC DSL.. I can download about 650 KB/s and upload about 120 KB/s, according to the connection speed that I pay for. My modem is the modem that my ISP provided me with; it's a NetFLX modem, a special modem used for the fiber optic lines. My router is a D-Link 11a/11g Dualband Wireless 108 Mbps router. I don't like wireless, so I just plug my network card on my computer into the LAN port on the router. My room mate, however, wants wireless, so the router provides him with that. However, there is a problem. When only uploading about 10-15 KB/s, my internet slows significantly! As a test, this is what I did. I made sure I was not downloading or uploading anything. My room mate's computer was off. I pinged google, and got an average ping of about 70 ms. I then sent a file to a friend via AIM. I was uploading to him at 16 kb/s. I then pinged google again. This time, I got an average latency of about 500 ms.
Now, that seems to be the simplest way of explaining my problem. However, things get more complicated as I add more variables into the mix. I tried uploading a file via gmail while simultaneously uploading that file to my friend on AIM. I still got a ping of about 500 ms to google. So, I open up Netlimiter (a nifty program that let's you see how much each process on your computer is uploading/downloading, and let's you set up and down caps on each process, or on your computer as a whole) to further diagnose what's going on. The upload rates of gmail and AIM add up to 16 kb/s! If gmail was taking 8 kb/s of my upstream, then AIM would be taking up 8 kb/s. If gmail was taking up 2, then AIM would be taking up 14. If gmail was taking up 10, then AIM would be taking up 4. See, they would always add up to 16! So it seems that for some odd reason my internet is being capped to 16 kb/s upstream. How is this possible? Please note that Netlimiter has nothing to do with this, as I made 100% sure I wasn't limitting ANYTHING. I then used netlimiter to cap the upload of AIM and gmail to 5 kb/s each, so I wasn't uploading anything over 10 kb/s. And I still was getting pings in the 400 to 500 range to google.
Ok now here's where things get REALLY wierd. You know how I can limit the up and downstreams of any process on my computer using Netlimiter, right? Well... If I limit AIM so that it can only upload at 5 kb/s, and it's currently uploading at 15 kb/s, AIM's upload rate will steadily decrease over the course of about a minute until it reaches 5 kb/s. So, I throw gmail out of the equation, and just keep uploading to my friend at 16 kb/s on AIM. I then use Netlimiter to limit AIM to 5 kb/s up. IMMEDIATELY, my ping to google is about 70 kb/s even when AIM is still uploading at 16 kb/s (remember, it takes about a minute for the upload rate to go down)
So my question is, how can I upload at 100 kb/s, like I should be able to with my connection, without my internet slowing to a crawl?