Bandwidth issues

Swish · #1 11-27-2012, 12:43 PM

Inspired by the other thread here.

I live with 6 other guys (no homo) and we share what has to be said a very poor internet connection together. Unfortunately 1 of them has a string of torrents that he just puts on and leaves on, I'd do it as well but I'm too considerate.

Is there any way of doctoring the router to limit downloads on certain data types? P99 isn't affected too badly due to being able to run on old dial-ups etc, and I'm not playing much at the moment anyway. Would just be nice to browse t'internetz without having to wait for YouTube videos to load.

Not overly tech savvy but I'd welcome any suggestions (aside from throwing his laptop off a tall building). He won't be reasoned with.

stormlord · #2 11-27-2012, 09:10 PM

I would think the best method is just to have him install a bandwidth limiter on his system. I think there're ways to do it with switches or the router or whatnot, but that's probably too complicated/expensive.

Just tell him to google "bandwidth limiter" and install it and then cap his bandwidth. He has to assume some responsibility for his choices, otherwise, your actions are futile and not meaningful.

Fourthmeal · #3 11-28-2012, 02:08 AM

I'd think outside hte bun if I were you

radditsu · #4 11-28-2012, 10:20 AM

Most torrent clients have the ability to throttle max download/upload speeds. Unless he's a giant dick you can just ask him to do that. Torrents are very resilient. The only real way i found to stop them is to setup a system that slows any non known traffic to dial up speeds. But that requires like, more than whatever crap router that you probably have to do it with. I have seen your run of the mill home networking routers freeze up very quickly due to torrent traffic.

Aka tell the guy to not be a dick. Find out whatever bandwidth you are getting from your isp and throttle his max to like, half of the down/upload speeds.

cadiz · #5 11-28-2012, 01:45 PM

You can look into using something like DD-WRT on your router (most routers support this)
and doing QoS (quality of service). You can throttle/limit network traffic per protocol (HTTP/torrents/etc) and also prioritize traffic like EQ. There are lots of ways to set it up.

DD-WRT (or OpenWRT or Tomato - all similiar) give you much greater functionality that what ships on your device.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DD-WRT

Good guide on QoS:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Quality_of_Service

I use this at home and it works great, rock solid and reliable.