Sucking Bandwidth?

Apparently I've been sucking bandwidth by not doing much. I live with a host family and the mother uses Skype daily to talk to her eldest daughter in England. It seems that in the past few days, when I'm connected and she calls her daughter the calls break off after a short moment. She just talked to me and as I'm inclined to not be a burden I'd like to solve this. Strangely as she tested the use of Skype with my wireless off and on I was barely using the internet - no downloading, no MSN, no Skype, no program running connected to the internet -, simply googling. If I'm simply accessing foreign sites am I sucking so much bandwidth that disrupts the use of Skype? If yes what can I do to help?

 

Well, how fast is your Internet connection? It shouldn't cut her off if you're just browsing. Downloading large files will do it, but again, only when you have a slow connection?

You can go to speedtest.net and click on your closest server and report back, and I can tell you more. Would you happen to know how fast a connection you're paying for? Is it DSL, cable modem, or FiOS?

 

Yeah, if it is something like a 1.5Mbps download, just coughing will be enough to disrupt Skype. Figure out how much bandwidth you have.

 

We have 1.5 and it is not the best, but I can be online and my brother is in LIVE.

As long as it is not youtube or hulu all is well.

 

No it wouldn't. I used to have 1Mbps connection and it worked fine with Skype audio and browsing. Besides remember that you are limited by upload speed not download speed with VoIP and browsing barely uses upload- just sending requests.
There might be a problem with Skype-video though. That obviously uses more upload bandwidth but still browsing doesn't stress upload...

 

I tested, results were: Download - 3.82Mb/s, Upload 0.36Mb/s, Ping 57ms. I can't say much because I'm only a guest here, so I don't even know how fast the connection my host family pays for is. Oh, I'm on a laptop using wireless if that makes any difference. But she's also on a laptop (though a bit dated). I have downloaded some files, watched videos on youtube, but when she was calling from Skype (audio only) there was none of that going on, just browsing.

 

That connection is fast enough for simultaneous browsing and Skype although no chance of decent quality of video (due to slow upload).
It may be the router and/or WiFi- is the network set to "g" mode?
See what happens if you browse from a computer that is connected via Ethernet cable to the router while someone uses Skype on wireless.

 

I'm with downloads here. A 3Mbps should be fast enough. I also suspect it is a hardware issue, although without actual bandwidth usage graphs, this is all speculation.


A 1.5 Mbps sure isn't fast enough for Skype and browsing around here....

 

May want to setup Skype ports as a priority.