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Is there a way to limit bandwidth?

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mista ting

Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2004
Location
New York City
I am going to sign up for a 5mbps connection and split it with 2 of my neighbors, is there a program or a certain setting to limit a computers bandwidth ex: 3 computers, limit to 1.5 mbps to each computer :confused:
 
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i would say the best way to do it is smoothwall it's got alot of features and i would imagine it could limit bandwidth. other than that i would imagine the shanty way of doing things like a wrt54g with dd-wrt firmware you could use QoS to prioritize specific ports along with limit bandwidth to already set numbers......you could also just leave theirs at standard and bump yours up to premium....depends on what exactly your looking to achieve... i would say even with smoothwall QoS will be a must if your a gamer as you cant stop your neighbors from downloading while you need those low pings.....unless of course you add it to your TOS......
 

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so its illeagle to split it amongst family? so why did they invent the router.... i guess ill be sticking to slow *** 56k :'(
 
your 2 neighbors are your family? I'm not sure, again check your TOS it might say one connection per household, look to be sure.
 
I believe the word you are looking for is “household” in place of family. Yes it most certainly is illegal on most major ISP’s to share the connection between households. There are smaller ISP’s that do allow this type of reselling / cost splitting but from my personal experience most major ISPs don’t.

Also to clear up another confusion its not illegal but against “Terms Of Service”.
 
yes, QoS is the way to go, you can use smoothwall's QoS module or use openbsd's built in packet filter QoS scheme.
 
My broken record stump speach... :)

Get yourself a Linksys WRT54G or GS and with Flash it with DD-WRT's firmware. This firmware will allow you to do the QOS you need for packet priority plus it will allow you to boost the signal strength for better coverage. Also if you use smoothwall you have to have a spare PC and then purchase an Wireless Access Point. Right now a WRT54G router costs less than an access point. You get the funcionality of the smoothwall but in a smaller easier to use appliance. Don't get me wrong I ran smoothwall for a few years till I went wireless and have nothing against it but for what you want a wireless router is a easier solution.

It will also allow you to utilize WDS. It is a feature that if you use 2 or more of these routers they all act together as signal repeaters so you can have a greater coverage area with the signal. What this means to you is if each of your neighbors gets a wrt54g you can utilize the signal strength from all the routers to complety cover your propertys.

Also if you can check out www.speakeasy.net and check out if their DSL is available to you. They don't care if you share your signal. They say you bought a ceartain amount of bandwidth and you can use it as you please. Heck they will even help you set up just this kind of network with your neighbors and will bill them for you also.......

Just too bad I am too far from a switching station for me to get DSL or I use them.
 
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When did this become a legal issues forum, last time I checked it was Overclockers forums? I'm assuming you want to split it up because several people will be splitting the cost. If everybody will just be surfing the web and randomly downloading I wouldn't even worry about splitting up the bandwidth unless there is a problem or if you have a power user who requires constant steady bandwidth which I doubt you have or will notice connection slowdown if you are switching from dialup.

As mentioned above the linksys wireless router or the smoothwall should get close to what you want. If your not familiar with smoothwall its a LINUX firewall router. Its easy to setup basic features but you need a spare PC with 2 NIC's in order to use this. You also need a switch and/or wireless access point to share the connection from smoothwall.
 
deez said:
When did this become a legal issues forum, last time I checked it was Overclockers forums? I'm assuming you want to split it up because several people will be splitting the cost. If everybody will just be surfing the web and randomly downloading I wouldn't even worry about splitting up the bandwidth unless there is a problem or if you have a power user who requires constant steady bandwidth which I doubt you have or will notice connection slowdown if you are switching from dialup.

I simply told him to check his TOS, because more than likely this type of behavior is against that agreement with his ISP. If it's in the same house then I'm sure it's not a problem - but he made it sound like he was going to split this with his neighbors, which I assumed meant people in different surrounding houses, which is again - most likely against his TOS.

Illegal is probably the wrong word as I'm unaware of a law he would be breaking, but his ISP could definately suspend or even cancel his account if they found out.

For the record, I don't really care what he does, I was simply letting him know of any potential consequences. I would've posted a how-to if it hadn't already been discussed.

I wouldn't do this without some sort of bandwidth control, unless your neighbors only browse the web and use email. If a user would play a bandwidth hungry game or start a well-spread torrent for example, it could bring everyone else's connection to a crawl.
 
Not to disregard the advice you gave b/c it was nice and short but the discussion kinda turned into a "this is/may be illegal" chat from post #2 which didn't even address the question asked in the 1st post. Guess I've just seen too many threads go off recently.

Fightingpiper...I think you meant http://www.speakeasy.net/ I dunno what the other speakeasy is
 
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