Is there an easy way to stop uploads KO-ing my home internet?

[Hobosapien]

The radio spectrum isn't duplex. And you have neighbours.

Also home wifi may be sharing bandwidth with local bluetooth devices or other stuff (microwave oven, usb 3 ) potentiallly interfering on same frequency range, that may impact outright performance.

i.e. wifi is ok for convenience but ethernet is better.

[Lance]

It was at the time but I am 80% certain I've had this when uploading (or downloading) over ethernet too.
I'll check at some point, however given my ISP gives 30/8 (fibre 1), how would an upload be saturating my Wifi? I would guess watching Netflix/Prime Video on the highest settings is a similar amount of data but I can watch 2 such streams and not notice any issues with internet browsing.

The radio spectrum isn't duplex. And you have neighbours.

[ladymuck]

Can you do uploads via a wired connection to see how your internet performance compares when you try to use wi-fi for other tasks at the same time?

[d000hg]

It was at the time but I am 80% certain I've had this when uploading (or downloading) over ethernet too.
I'll check at some point, however given my ISP gives 30/8 (fibre 1), how would an upload be saturating my Wifi? I would guess watching Netflix/Prime Video on the highest settings is a similar amount of data but I can watch 2 such streams and not notice any issues with internet browsing.

[eek]

is it all WiFi?
It could be that the radio bandwidth is flooded rather than the xDSL line

+1 - I'm not aware of any way that uploads on an ADSL / fibre line impact download speed - it sounds like a wifi issue.

[Lance]

Uploading a large file over the weekend, we realised we'd done it again and Netflix wouldn't work as the upload was caning the connection.

I've tried to fix this before by setting maximum transfer rates to 90% of our typical maximum but this is very kludgy and doesn't seem to work well.

I find it quite strange a consumer router/modem doesn't have this as a standard feature... if you're uploading on YouTube for an hour then it really sucks you can't load BBC News, it just seems an obvious use-case for domestic kit and non-techy users.

Have I missed an obvious fix to this or is it just one of those things we have to live with?

is it all WiFi?
It could be that the radio bandwidth is flooded rather than the xDSL line

[Hobosapien]

Option 1: Try thottling the ethernet port/wifi network connection on the device doing the upload, if the OS allows that to be changed easily and not for only downloads.

Option 2: Use a 3g/4g/5g dongle to upload without touching normal home internet. Mobile may actually have a faster upload speed than typical broadband that is usually much slower than download speed for typical home offerings, even with fibre to the cabinet. Should be easy to test using a mobile phone with hotspot ability before committing to any new kit and service.

Option 3: See if your current (I assume already fibre broadband for best experience) provider has a better package more suited to faster uploads. May need to upgrade to their fastest offering, change provider, or look at business grade services. With all the WFH and cloud storage one would expect there to be better options now where in the past it was all about download rather than upload speed, so worth looking into what you have and what you can get.

Testing my home fibre broadband and the download is twice as fast as upload. Not tried to saturate the upload to see if download is affected, which may be a technical limitation with the typical broadband offering via the OpenReach infrastructure.

[d000hg]

What brand router?
Who is your ISP?
What size is the file?
Where were you trying to load it to?

I've experienced this with every ISP (Plusnet, BT, O2, Sky) I ever used, and every router - right now I'm using a TP-Link AC1900.
Any file that takes several minutes to upload, but we're talking manual uploads here not using Dropbox which seems to sync more intelligently.

[WTFH]

What brand router?
Who is your ISP?
What size is the file?
Where were you trying to load it to?

[d000hg]

Uploading a large file over the weekend, we realised we'd done it again and Netflix wouldn't work as the upload was caning the connection.

I've tried to fix this before by setting maximum transfer rates to 90% of our typical maximum but this is very kludgy and doesn't seem to work well.

I find it quite strange a consumer router/modem doesn't have this as a standard feature... if you're uploading on YouTube for an hour then it really sucks you can't load BBC News, it just seems an obvious use-case for domestic kit and non-techy users.

Have I missed an obvious fix to this or is it just one of those things we have to live with?