5 kilobit per second should be fine for IRC. A typical PRIVMSG command is what, 200 bytes or so, which gives space for three PRIVMSGs in a second. IRC doesn't c

5 kilobit per second should be fine for IRC. A typical PRIVMSG command is what, 200 bytes or so, which gives space for three PRIVMSGs in a second. IRC doesn't compress, but it's also not particularly wasteful with bandwidth.