Downloads crippled while uploading

[mysteron]

I've noticed in recent weeks that whenever I'm uploading a file, my download speed slows to almost zero and sometimes I'm unable to load anything at all until the upload is finished.

As an audio company we're constantly zapping files to and fro but this is becoming unworkable. Does anyone know of anything I can do?

I'm on BT business broadband and have been for over 8 years and I don't remember this being a problem until recently - even checking emails while uploading a file is impossible.

Today I did a speed test (with nothing else running) and got the following. The download speed is ok but the upload seems scarily slow - or am I imagining things?

Download 6.72Mb/s

Upload 0.37Mb/s

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1004026978.png

Any help much appreciated before I call the BT Business support people

[dave]

Your speeds look OK, the upload is maybe a little slow but not terribly so and seems fairly consistent with the download speed.

The problem that you describe is actually normal for when you are maxing out the upstream bandwidth. The reason being that downstream traffic (checking email, web browsing, etc) still requires the upstream bandwidth to send the requests for email, web pages, etc to the server, and also whilst recieving the data your machine still needs to send acknowledgement of packets received.

The trick is to throttle your uploads, leaving about a quarter of the upstream bandwidth free for other tasks. I am not sure how you are transferring, whether it is via FTP, bittorrent, etc but see if your software allows you to limit the transfer speed. If not, then you might need to look at alternative software for transferring.

Alternatively, some of the more top end routers allow you to manage quality of service (QoS) which allows you to guarantee a minimum amount of bandwidth at all times to the nominated machine(s) on your network.