When connecting to a customers hosting service via Sql Server Management Studio on an internet connection that also has other activity on it, the Sql Server connection to the hosting service is often dropped.

An obvious work around to this problem is to NOT have additional traffic on the connection but it still begs the question "Why the Sql Server connection is so unstable?".

If there is, for arguments sake, 100kb of bandwidth and a couple of downloads running that are being serviced at 35kB each then there is 30kB bandwidth spare capacity. If a 3rd download is started, that can be serviced at 35kB by the server, it will top out at 30kB and leave zero spare capacity. This is fine and all downloads get along nicely.

However it seems that with Sql Server connections it doesn't matter if there is spare bandwidth. Sql Server regularly times out if there is any additional activity on the connection even if i have 1024kB spare bandwidth capacity. This has been experienced across different customer hosting providers over the years and so the assumption is that it's Sql Server related.

Why does Sql Server (apparently) require exclusive access to the internet connection in order to maintain a connection... even if that connection has plenty of spare capacity over and above any additional activity on the connection?