DSL limitations

How many computers can you hook up to one residential DSL line before it effects its performance...

[Uranium-235]

through hardware router? NAT?

DSL might have the (downstream) transfer rate of a T1, but the bandwidth isn't near as high, so more people connecting, the more of an effect it will have on the overall bandwidth.

Think of it like this, the Transfer rate is how fast the water goes down a pipe, the bandwidth is how fat the pipe is. When you use a pipe splitter on a narrow pipe (DSL), each system gets less water, but if the pipe is very wide (T1) each system can get more of the water at a time.

so to answer your question...it depends on the ISP...we get a little more then 1/2 the bandwidth per system when both system are accessing the DSL line at the same time (We're using NAT routing)

It really depends on how many "users" will be accessing the internet at the same time. If you have 5 computers set up and only one is using it, the speed is not affected. However, if all five are downloading files then your the speed would be devided between them.

At my work, we have 25 computers hooked up to a single DSL line. During a normal day, I rarely see any difference in speed because the usual activity by everyone (not all at once) is browsing web pages. Not downloading large files.