Does connection to torrent peers slow down internet?

Question

I currently run torrents every so often. My internet speed is 50Mb/s down, 3Mb/s up.

I don't want my torrenting to affect the speed of other people on my network, so I usually set a maximum download of 500KB/s and a maximum upload of 40KB/s. However, I was told by someone else using my network that just being connected to many peers itself could slow down the internet to a noticeable effect.

I tried to google the answer, but I couldn't find anything. My question is: In my case, with a bandwidth limit well below my maximum, would the sheer connection to my peers slow the internet for other users? With the bandwidth limit on, should users experience slow connections?

Answer 1

Some ISP's limit the number of connections from a location. So theoretically, it could cause issues as your torrent connections could compete with another connection for a slot.

One easy fix is limiting your number of connections, or "work" on down-times (i.e. over night).