STop downloaders from using all the bandwidth

[kofidennis2001]

Hi guys, i'll cut to the chase. I share my internet connection via TP-LINK wireless router(not one of the latest models) with a bunch of other guys. We all agreed to only download after midnight so during the day everyone can have a comfortable browsing experience.

there are however some stubborn folks always downloading and or streaming and making the network painfully slow and unusable.Please I need a solution that will enable me limit each user's bandwidth or deny access to any user whose bandwidth usage goes above a certain threshold.

I use a macbook so will be an added advantage if proposed solutions involve software that can run on a mac; still pretty much any solution goes.

Thank you

 

[outlw6669]

Welcome to the forums!

Look in your routers firmware and see if it supports QoS (Quality of Service).
If it does, configure the rules to ensure that everyone has fair access to the available bandwidth and you are all set!

If not, check and see if there is DD-WRT Support for your particular router model.
After you Flash to DD-WRT, your router would then have QoS and can be configured to regulate your bandwidth.

-outlw

 

[kofidennis2001]

thanks for response.please how do i check if my router has DD-WRT support?Its a TP Link TL-WR642G
i tried checking on the TP LINK website but they add things like V3 and V4(i.e TL-WR642G V4) to the model name so i'm not sure if it's the same model they're talking about…..

 

[outlw6669]

I just checked the DD-WRT Support Site and your router is unfortunately listed as 'Not Possible to Support'

In general though, QoS is the feature you are looking for as it allows the router to manage all connected computers.
Luckily there are quite a few inexpensive routers that support DD-WRT; the $20 TP-LINK TL-WR841N for example.

-outlw

 

[outlw6669]

Actually, I just spotted this for the TP-LINK TL-WR841N I posted above:

IP QoS－Control Bandwidth Reasonably
Among the wireless network, indiscriminate Internet surfing and bandwidth-guzzling downloads by internal users often leave home or small office with insufficient bandwidth. TL-WR841N supports IP QoS function, allowing optimum utilization of bandwidth and offers bandwidth control over congestion, preventing the bandwidth abuse. In this way, the users of a small network receive committed and specific bandwidth, preventing non-critical applications from degrading network performance.

It supports QoS out of the box and should not even need to be flashed to a different firmware.

-outlw

 

[bill001g]

Your needs will be extremely hard to configure even with QoS.

The tplink router linked above is a good start but you will likely have to go to a third party firmware load. Tomato or gargoyle tend to be the ones with the most advanced QoS things.

So what you can do with the factory tplink is put in hard download rates for each person. You for example could say ip x.x.x.x can only run 1mbit/sec. You could in effect divide up the internet between your users. The problem is it is not possible to use the excess capacity if someone else is not using it. You are stuck to a point since this limit does not change by time of day or load on the connection.

You can if you can identify certain traffic type as higher priority than others but it is not always real effective. You can really only control the requests sent out, the inbound traffic is actually controlled by the ISP. you can not recreate a packet that the ISP discards and you have no ability to control which data a ISP will discard. You can attempt to limit traffic outbound to control inbound but it tends to be very tricky to get rates that really work. Things like bit torrent are almost impossible to limit.

If you know what sites are causing the problems you might be able to use the parental controls on the router to block these sites by time of day. Again if it is bit torrent it is all random addresses so it won't be real effective.