Why can't I connect to my router?

[rowlfe]

The problem is not going to be fixed, not by YOU anyway. The problem is "the party line effect". This is a bottleneck in data flow. It happens because on a party line only ONE "talks" at a time. Transmits in the case of broadband cable or wireless. The access point only has 1 transmitter and can only talk to one user at a time, while everyone else waits for the line to clear. Whent the line DOES finally clear, many try to talk at once and ALL fail for a period of time. Evetually the log jam clears and data resumes, with ONE person talking ans all the rest of yuou waiting. Connection SPEED is constant, since that depends on the transmitter and receiver frequencies used. Throughput (data moved over time) fluctuates with the number of users who are trying to talk. Your ISP has ONE transmitter at their end of the cable, so if there are 100 users, you only get 1/100th of the transmitter talk time to talk to YOU since the ISP can only talk to ONE user at a time, while the other 99 wait. he more users, the slower everyone goes. You are not alone. Everyone is suffering just as YOU are. Misery loves company. All you can do is use wire instead of wireless and then use off peak hours. The best performance is one application in one computer. Add another computer or application, and you slow your own speed by sharing the data pipe to your ISP. The data pipe to your ISP is fixed, like a garden hose. If you try to get more water out by splitting the hose, putting a Y connection in the line, each side only gets half of what enters the Y from your ISP. OK, so that is what the party line effect IS, and why it is mainly circumstances beyond your control that limit your throughput to molasses in January. What to do is simple: Shift to hardwire from wireless, reduce the number of computers and running applications that share your connection with your ISP (stop online gaming, for example), and get a faster connection to your ISP.