Networking speed question

Hi all, I have cable internet access and I'm using the Linksys 10M Phoneline Router. I know you will lose some speed when you share one internet account with multiple PCs over a home network. When I set up the router the program asked me how many PCs I was planning to network. I typed in 5 (I have three PCs right now, but I may add one later). My question pertains to loss of speed. Will I lose more speed if I typed in 5 rather than 4 ? Or do you only lose speed if all the PCs in the network are simultaneously accessing the internet ?

Thanks for any info.

 

You will only lose speed when additional computers are connected to the network and using the bandwidth. If at some particular time, only the one computer that has the cable modem is turned on, then it has all of the bandwidth. I think though if you connect the cable modem to the router and the computers to the hub, then you won't lose bandwidth. I'm no exert on this matter so what I know is what I learn from my own experiences. We have five computers networked together sharing 276 kbps DSL each with separate IP adresses, and there seems to be no lose of bandwidth. Because of server congestion and all that on the other side, we don't always get all 276, but when one reports to be getting 276 (through netmedic), the others do too. Our setup is a wireless DSL modem connected to a router connected to a 15 port hub which then splits off to each individual computer through cat5.