It seems to me that a certain amount of speed loss and a small amount of increased ping is to be expected on a consumer contended isp, most people would never notice, what however is unacceptable and causes lots of problems is packet loss, a connection with ping of 50ms and 2/3rds of your 'rated' speed will still satisfy most consumers. Surfing / streaming and to some extent gaming will still be satisfactory. Where it all falls down is when packet loss kicks in. Causing problems for VOIP, gaming, streaming and any other 'realtime' activity. I have survived for 10 years with a ping between 35 and 55 and a speed of maximum 7Mb and, while not perfect it has not effected me too much. I'm hoping when my fibre is connected in a weeks time to see a substantial improvement in both speed and latency.
Edited by frogfoot1 (Fri 10-Apr-15 16:29:14)