Static IP & Port forwarding

[cottage]

Hi all,

I relatively new to BitComet and torrents. However, I've done a lot of reading and I'm quite familiar with computers. Among others, I've read the following guides and all the pages to which they link.

http://forums.bitcomet.com/index.php?showtopic=410

http://forums.bitcomet.com/index.php?showtopic=533

Can anyone help me with a curiosity question? The guides recommend establishing a static IP address for every computer on the network (when using a router) and port forwarding the listening port.

My question.....

If the above is not done, an IP address is automatically assigned each time the computer boots and BitComet seems to find and have access to the listening port. How does a static IP address and port forwarding speed up the BitComet download and upload?

Sorry - I know that this is a real geeky question but I like to understand what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.

[The UnUsual Suspect]

Your bit torrent client (bit comet) will "listen" for requests to come to it from the internet.

If you have no router, all requests will come in to your computer on your assigned listening port.

If you use a router, it will not know which computer to send the data to, which causes a delay. This will harm your responce time.

When you forward your port to the computer that is running the torrent, then all data coming in on that port is directed to that computer.

Now you know why port forwarding is needed.

Next subject is why you need a static IP address. This is very simple. Your router identifies your computer by its IP address, and if a different computer on your LAN is now using that address, it will get the data instead of the one you want it to.

The reason to assign static IP addresses to all computers is to be sure none of the others are able to "grab" an IP that your downloading computer is using, as that would cause a confilict.

Suspect

[cottage]

Suspect....

GREAT straightforward reply!!!!!

Thank-you

[The UnUsual Suspect]

Your very welcome :)