Traffic management in a home ADSL router?

[da.Guvna]

I've just bought a flat with 2 mates, and we're all fairly heavy internet users.
There are obviously gonna be points where one person is playing Halo or something, and another is gonna be downloading unsavoury lady movies, arguments will ensue, and the world will implode.

I've bought a Hawking Broadband Booster (I know it sounds like a phony product, but it got lots of excellent reviews and only cost me £30!), but it's not the most elegant system as it needs to go between the modem and the router. That's effectively 3 plug sockets being occupied by polar bear-killing devices, when I could probably get away with one.

Basically, the booster looks at the outbound traffic, and prioritizes time-sensitive packets (games, streaming media, etc). I don't believe it does anything with inbound traffic, as that won't affect lag.

Anyway, I just noticed that Zyxel make a router which pretty much does exactly what I want. The only problem is, they've incorporated homeplug technology into it, and therefore charge extra for tech I won't use.

I had a look at their website, and their product range seems pretty limited, and the homeplug routers are the only ones I can see that actually specify the 'Media Bandwidth Management' function.

Can anyone recommend any alternatives?

Cheers!

[Jay]

You can do this with Linux but to be honest the cost of running it will out way the Zyxel model.

If you can all agree it may be worth looking into software on each PC to limit the bandwidth.

ps

You would be surprised how much upload will affect you online gaming experience.

[da.Guvna]

Yeah, I had considered the software route, but to be honest I'd prefer to have a single discreet solution in place, as I'll invariably be the one that has to sort it all out if there are any problems.

I had also considered Linux as a gateway server, but I think that's just overkill.

[Jay]

I would just use a bat and their head / fingers.

[da.Guvna]

LOL! I may well end-up doing that.

I quite like the look of that new Belkin N1 router with the snazzy little LCD display on it, purely so that if there are any issues we can easily see who the culprit is and point fingers

[smargh]

It would use a plug, but I use m0n0wall on an old version of a Lex Light miniPC ( LinITX.com - LIGHT - Fanless ) and it works very well. You can define custom pipes (total speeds) and prioritise or limit certain ports. I use it to limit my main PC's down & upstream so that other PCs get low latency - I'm nice like that. It works transparently - just slot it inbetween the DSL router and a separate switch.

[da.Guvna]

Wow, that's a very cool solution! I like it a lot, but it's a bit more than I'm willing to spend at the moment though, as I would still need to buy a router on top of that

[smargh]

m0n0wall is free, and you could use any old spare PC you have - even 200MHz would be fine. The Lex Light I use is a VIA-branded chip which runs at probably the equivalent of a crappy 150MHz Cyrix - it's really crap, but only uses about 2% CPU.

m0n0 runs from 16MB+ CompactFlash, so no HD required, and you only need 64MB memory. Of course you also need two network cards.

Note that in the latest beta version, firewalling and traffic shaping don't work together - use the most recent stable version (1.233) instead.

[da.Guvna]

Yeah, I've got plenty of old servers/desktops lying around that I could use for that function, but I'm a bit of an eco-freak and I don't really think the extra power draw is worth it for such a menial task.
That's why I really want a router that does the job.

[Moby-Dick]

how about a draytek ?

Vigor QoS Information

this would appear to be the dogs danglies.....

Vigor2820 ADSL Router, Firewall and VPN Device

you can even use it to connect up a 2nd DSL line....

[da.Guvna]

That seems ideal!

Cheers for that.....now I've just gotta see if my house-mates approve