Anyway to limit my roommate's bandwidth?

[Shawn]

I've got a netgear WGT624 router and was wondering if it was possible to limit the amount of internet bandwidth that my roommates can use. They are connected over wireless and I am connected via LAN.

My roommates are constantly maxing out the internet upload even though i've told them not to and are slowing down the entire internet. I want to be able to keep them from maxing out the bandwidth.

 

[chuck2002]

I don't know about that router, but I run an IPCOP firewall in the place of my router and it has an addon for QOS.
I found with my firmware hacked linksys router that enabling QOS on it slowed everything to a crawl. I assumed that the QOS service was eating up all the router's cpu....
What you would do to keep your existing setup and add an ipcop firewall is connect your modem to one nic in your ipcop computer (Can be a total jalopy, ipcop doesn't need much horsepower) and then the other nic connects to your existing router into one of the normal switch ports, you will not use your WAN port in this setup. Configure your ipcop to enable DHCP and you are off to the races. You might have to get the addon for QOS, i can't remember if that was included in the default install, but ipcop is really easy to work with and quite powerful and secure.

 

[BladeVenom]

Easy, just lock them out of it completely. That limits them to 0 bandwidth. If they aren't going to play nice, don't let them plat at all. When the RIAA sends the subpoena for music sharing guess who's name's going to be on it. Just lock them out.

 

[Kaido]

I'd suggest upgrading your router. The Buffalo model is available for under $40 shipped online and you can load the DD-WRT firmware on it. You can use the DD-WRT to do a number of things including bandwidth throttling. I think you'd probably want to look at the Quality of Service feature: (also see the tc command link there)

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Quality_of_Service

If you want more info on the Buffalo router, shoot me a PM.

 

[aceO07]

Find a 2.4ghz cordless phone and turn it on when they're hogging bandwidth. That should mess up their connections a bit.

OR you could talk to them again and maybe have them pay for upgraded connection?

OR you would get a new router that supports QOS.

 

[IEC]

It'll be a liability issue, so use a different router/firmware to throttle them back... since they're not listening.

 

[mrred]

If you have 2 NIC's, you can use internet connection sharing with WinXP, then disable DHCP in the router and use it as a switch.

Then get a program like Netlimiter to control how much UL you're giving them. They probably won't even realize that anything has changed, except for their reduced UL since they will still see their wire going to the router.

Buying up to a better connection won't help 'cause they're probably idiots who just let their P2P programs use the maximum available UL, therefore bringing your DL to a crawl. Getting more UL just means they'll be uploading more.

edit - oops, you said they are using wireless. Maybe the router can act as an access point without using DHCP?

 

[brucekatz]

Take antenna off. Unless, he is right beside you.