Affecting neighbours connection?

I've recently been downloading large files (specifically GTA V via the steam client - it's around 65GB) utilising all of my connection (around 3Mbps). One of my neighbours (who I often talk to) has just told me that their connection has been intermittent and incredibly slow only as of recently (he's elderly and has little knowledge about technology, and was asking if I knew of any fix).

Is it possible that my excessive downloading is the cause of his terrible connection? If so, is this a normal thing to happen with ADSL broadband or could it indicate a fault somewhere?

Thanks
(apologies if my post is difficult to understand, I'm pretty tired)

Edited by thebigdolphin1 (Fri 11-Dec-15 20:39:03)

Is it possible that my excessive downloading is the cause of his terrible connection? If so, is this a normal thing to happen with ADSL broadband or could it indicate a fault somewhere?

In short, no.

With respect to Zarjaz a straight "no" is too definitive. Certainly if a copper line issue is the cause then it is the correct answer.

However, are both you and your neighbour using wireless connectivity for devices? If so, if you are using adjacent wireless channels there can be interference. Devices on the same channel avoid this by negotiation. A few years back the common advice was to scan nearby access points using something like inSSIDer or on a Linux box the "iwlist" command to see what channels nearby access points are using and to try to spread all access points to channels 1, 6 or 11 (or 13) as those do not overlap. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels

More modern equipment can use multiple channels though, but the advice still holds, try to gain agreement from those nearby to stick to the channels that do not overlap for optimum performance.

It's unlikely that this is the issue, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility and is good to do from an optimisation point of view.

HTH

Thanks for your response, I appreciate you spending some of your time to help me out.
I certainly don't believe wireless connectivity is an issue here as firstly, most of my internet usage is wired through ethernet (especially the downloading), and secondly, it is his actual connection going down as the connection indicator on his router turns red (..supposedly, I haven't seen it myself yet).

It's not your downloading causing his Internet to disconnect - he has a fault by the sound of it. If high levels of downloading could cause that there would be complaints all over the place.

My household has downloaded over 500Gb in 20 days, next doors connection is still flying along I know, i often visit and watch netflix with them

He has a fault, perhaps he is not using the master socket, does not have a filter plugged into every phone socket or is using a cheap extension lead such as this one http://www.lindy.co.uk/images/5m-telephone-extension...

He may have something silly such as a phone or sky box plugged straight into a phone socket and no filter used. This is the most common reason for dropouts I find.