iPhone and iPad WiFi connections feud

[annekevdl]

Does connecting my Apple product slow down the entire house network speed?

I just got my iPhone 4s and want to connect it to wifi. As i had my old iPhone connected to the wifi in our house, i wanted to do the same with my new one. My stepfather said he won't setup the connection for me unless i remove it from the previous phone, I said that's fine because i will not be using it. I then asked to get the wifi setup on my iPad2 (I have had it for months but never set it up) and he said no. His reasoning's is that all the constant connections will make our internet slower. Is this true? I personally don't think so, and my mum is too computer illiterate to understand and stand up for me.

Basically I want to have factual information (statements, articles etc) to forward an email just to prove that it will not slow down the house speed of internet and it is fine to connect all my Apple products to the internet. So if anyone has information re: ipod and ipad connecting to your wifi network will not slow it down then all are welcome!

Correct me if i am wrong though, that the speed would reduce, only if it would reduce rapidly would i understand his dispute to connect it for me.

 

[Hawk]

Well, it's true if you have a high number of devices on your home network.... Like 20.
The average house-hold has roughly 7-10 devices that can be on the home network. That includes all PC's, the TV, possibly the Blueray player, the gaming console(s), and then any hand-held devices like an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
Is this going to slow down the network? possibly, if everything is connected and several devices are pulling down huge amounts of data (like Netflix, or music or movies)
To me, your dad seems paranoid, but then again, I don't know anything about your connection or how many devices are already on that network.

 

[rambo47]

Your stepfather is an idiot. More connections won't slow down your network until you have enough devices connected and in use all at once to saturate the system and use up all the bandwidth. That's a lot of devices all with active connections in use at the same time.

 

[annekevdl]

Thanks for your help guys. I didn't think it was correct and so annoyed by this. Lets just say they are control freaks. The maximum we would be using at once is roughly 7 devices including playstation network (which we don't even use often). I am located in Australia, our internet is nowhere near as good as other places such as the US however, again I don't think this would be an issue. As I raised to my mum, its 2011, so many people have many devices connected to WIFI in their homes. Need to move out I guess is my best bet!

 

[Hawk]

what's your connection speed of the internet service? 5Mbps? 10?
Seriously, it would take a lot for anyone to notice a change in speed, and while it might not be the 12 to 20Mbps download times here, it still shouldn't make a difference.

 

[verwon]

At any given time here, my roommate and I have 10, or more devices connected at once, with no problems.


Sent from my iOS ecosystem!

 

[glsda]

FYI At my home we may have 2 to 8 devices on line at the same time with no impact.

 

[annekevdl]

Thanks for your replies guys!

I am going to face the battle of providing him with knowledge that his theory is incorrect and all my devices should be connected!

 

[owieh]

We have quite a few devices connected to via wifi and I've never really experienced significant slow down.
It would only slow down a bit at peak time, we live quite far from the telephone exchange you see + fibre optics have not been rolled out in our area yet.

 

[iP5]

Why don't you run a speed from the desktop (speedtest.net) while one of iDevices is running a youtube video and the other devices are on. On my own tests I have about 13mb/sec download speeds and the youtube video will consume 1mb/sec if the test and video are running concurrently.
That's the situation right, only one iDevice will be sharing the home connection at any moment despite have more than one?

Warning: You don't want to do a speedtest from two or more devices at the same time because you will find that bandwidth is shared/competed at that moment, proving your stepfathers point.

In reality, you rarely have more than one device needing all the bandwidth for a very long time and most services don't get up to full speed for very long.