How can I increase my bandwidth?

I live in a big apartment complex that shares a T1 (I think). I'm paying for the second fastest internet service, but I never reach my full bandwidth. It makes it impossible for me to play online games because I lag so much. Is there any way that I can increase the bandwidth that I'm getting?

Get a line that isnt shared ? T1 shouldnt lag.

play from 1-6am when nobody is on it

yup. since your bandwidth is shared, everybody's sharing that big connection. this is the only reason you're lagging. the less people sharing your connection, the bigger your share is. People in the dorms complain about how the network lags sometimes, and that's because about 200-300 students share each connection (each building has its own network server connected to a t1 line), and the bandwidth gets clogged when everybody gets back into the dorms. luckily for me, i'm living off-campus w/adsl.

Don't know what to tell you... you don't have control over what other people are doing with the bandwidth, but you do have control over where your $$$ goes. I'd suggest getting DSL or Cable if you can rather than paying to get in on this (apparently useless) T1 line.

A T1 is equal to, or in some places, slower than, cable or DSL. It really depends on the game that your playing, but if you are lagging, you should see if you can get Cable or DSL instead.

You will also find that your internet provider will never promise you a certain level of bandwidth (unless on a leased line), in most cases, they will tell you something like it's "about the speed of a T1".

Also-- if they tell you it's a T1 for everyone to share, then you won't get much out of it, it will crawl depending on how many people use it. But if they say, "you should get about the same connection as a T1", that means that they have alot of bandwidth for everyone to share, and if you split it up equally, and figure everything in, you should get an average of a T1 (1.544 Mbits/s)

We have 4 T1 lines at work. But with about 100 desktops, two large App servers and about 10 file servers running it can get slooooow. Granted there is a lot of data in constant motion ower our WAN and LAN, I can connect to App and File servers in Calif, NY, and 16 other places at will.

I still check my work email at home before I go in every day because the Web Based Outlook APP is so much faster through my Cable Modem. This way I can delete all those Large, Useless attachments from the comfort of home and not have to wait for them to load.

Basically..... SHARED SUX!!

Plus do you have a full T1? If you have a partial T1, then you get even less bandwidth in the first place to share.