WIFI internet throttled when mobile phone Is uploading photos via Google Photos

Hi All

I have set both mine and my wife's phones to upload photos to Google only when on WIFI and only when charging. Every time i plug my phone in to charge the WIFI internet around the house suddenly stops for the duration of the upload (depending on how many photos are in the queue). My internet is through Optus and I have been with them ever since i remember.

Is this normal and has does it happen to you? And does that mean my Optus connection is crap or capped by them or something similar?

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Comments

  • +3

    You're on ADSL, I'm guessing. The upstream channel is lower speed than downstream, so when you upload photos, it can delay other upstream traffic and requests for web pages are upstream. You might be able to use Quality of Service settings in your router to prevent uploads from hogging most of the upstream channel.

  • upload is like 10% of the total bandwidth. So when you upload something big it bottle necks everything.

  • My upload speed is literally 5% of my download speed, but at school I can get 800 Mbps up for some reason.

  • Happens to me with Optus too.
    Doing a speed test you can see the upload is extremely limited.
    Uploading anything will rail the internet for everyone in my home using it.

    As greenpossum said, upload bandwidth slows download speeds too. This is because "3 way handshakes" are done to confirm connections, our computers send data in order to connect to data and without enough upload bandwidth this is either impossible or very slow.

    For what it's worth, I have cable, the highest Speed Pack available, the latest modem provided by Optus, and a wired connection with a decent PC.

  • +2

    Turnbull NET 2.0

  • Well I don't seem to have any trouble with 'Turnbull net'…

  • Review settings for your ADSL router. Set maximum upstream speed to 90% of capacity. This will save it from clobbering downstream. It's called different things in different routers, but worth doing if you have an option. A real set and forget winner.

    Unfortunately most ISP provided routers are neutered and may not have options. A replacement off the shelf router might be a better bet long term.

    For reference, here is how to do it on a TP-Link device - http://www.tp-link.com/en/faq-557.html

  • +1

    This is normal, no matter what ISP and technology (ADSL, Fiber, Cable) you are currently using.

    Generally, TCP uses a little bit bandwidth for sending ACK packet (a "roger" packet your computer sends back to download server). When you are doing full speed uploading, your upstream bandwidth is saturated and it will affect your downlink speed.

    In ADSL, we normally have 2 standards - Annex A and Annex M. Annex A is the most widely used protocol for Telstra, Optus, TPG, etc - you can only get up to 1,024K upload speed. Apart from this, Annex M, which is currently used by Internode etc - your upload speed will be doubled but with the compromise of some download speed.

    The good practice for avoiding this is to limit the upload speed using QOS. I usually limit my upload speed to 80-90% of the acquired speed to maximise the download speed at the same time.

  • Thanks for the info everyone. I've got a netgear router and was able to login to it but can't find any settings that allow me to limit the bandwidth.

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