Multiple wireless connections affecting ping?

So basically I struggle to reach a low ping when playing games which is irritating obviously. When browsing the internet I'm not to bothered.

I have 10MB/s connection which is pretty good so I know its not bandwidth being taken up. My PC is connected through wire to the router downstairs. Whenever I turn the wireless off my ping seems to be completely fine, minimal laag. But when its on and has about 6 connections from other devices (iPhones, iPad2, Macbooks, laptops) that people are using in the house the ping levels spikes even though the actual speeds are fine. Can anyone confirm that multiple wireless connections can cause the wired connections pings to spike or all other devices for that matter.

Also is it a router issue which needs replacing? Currently using a Sagemcom F@ST2504n which was supplied by Sky.

Multiple wireless connections can indeed cause issues. Its usualy down to the connection that these phones are using, not on about not being used, it can be if someone's on this, an update is downloading or its possable the wireless is using bandwidth up. I don't think its a faulty router.however, try changing the password, then updating one device at a time until you find the one thats causing the issue. Or change the password and then see if its just down to the Wi-Fi itself being on.

Doesn't make sense to me.

Let me explain "Ping" and it might be clearer,

Ping time is the latency or delay in the signal. It is the round trip time in milliseconds that it takes the signal to travel from your computer to the destination server and back. (lower is better).

Depending on the speed of the server that you are pinging, number of hops, and distances involved your latency can vary dramatically.

When a router tries to route Internet traffic to non-responsive destination router, it must be re-routed.

This can cause extreme latency (delay / slow ping) in the network. Your connection may have to be routed through 15 or 20 hops (different locations) to reach the server. Each server has a delay (latency) due to the distances that the signals must travel.

Connection type will also affect latency.

Wireless signals are affected by many factors including wall density, electrical interference, directional antenna range, etc.

Your latency (ping) may be 30 ms and wireless interference could cause it to spike to 200 ms or more. Wireless connection quality also varies and there's overhead involved in the transfer such as the encryption / decryption used for wireless security.

For a wired connection your latency should be stable unless your wireless connections are using excessive bandwidth.

Let me explain:

A wireless router connects two separate networks and manage the traffic between them.

In most home network applications the router connects your local group of computers and devices known as the LAN with the Internet, commonly called the WAN or Wide Area Network.

Your WAN speed is determined by your ISP and is measured in Mbps (Millions of bits per second). You can test your WAN speed here: http://speedtest.net/...edtest.net

For example if you pay for a 3 Mbps Internet connection, you will get 3 Mbps.

No router or connection will change your 3 Mbps Internet speed. This connection bandwidth is shared by your entire LAN via your router.

If you have a 3 Mbps Internet connection and one user is utilizing 2.5 Mbps of the bandwidth to stream a Netflix movie that only leaves 0.5 Mbps for all of the rest of the users on the LAN.

"Also is it a router issue which needs replacing?"

I guess anything is possible however I seriously doubt that your router has a issue with Ethernet connections.

Aren't you pinging the router, right? Pings on networking equipment are low prioritized.
Some SOHO equipment also hardly stay comfortible with multiple clients (mainly on wireless).
Try to do some tests and see wether pinging (remote server) changes soon (1 or 2 Wi-Fi clients) or after conecting them all. Some router wireless card firmware is indeed buggy. I had the same problem using a linksys cisco home access gateway (and sometimes Wi-Fi froze completely) and I solved turning off the router Wi-Fi functionality and connecting a dedicated access point to the switch.