Sharing bandwidth with a router.

[liquid-fix]

Hi guys,
We will be moving house soon and we are planning to make a network of 3 computers working of a 1mb conn. What we ideally want is something that will split the bandwidth between the 3. So the computer can use no more then is avail. If there are 2 computers on half each, 1 computer all of it etc. I have heard some belkin routers can do just this, but i can't for the life of me find where to get them or even what model numbers there are. Also if your limit yur internet bandwidth with these routers does it limit yur entire network bandwidth? Could ideally do with a fast response as we are moving monday, anyhelp apreciated.
Fix

[Edit] If anyone else knows another way of doing this, info also apreciated. [/Edit]

[Jonny M]

That's pretty advanced stuff really, bandwidth control is very very difficult to do.

You're looking at either using an old PC as a Linux box to run QoS (quality of service) programs on, or a Cisco router (expensive).

[Paul Adams]

What you described is pretty much what happens in a normal contention situation - if client is communicating, it has all the bandwidth available, if 2 are communicating at the same time then they would get roughly half the bandwidth available each - 3 clients would get a third.

The servers you are connecting with will have an impact - you rarely get the maximum throughput your connection can handle from a single server anyway once you get to broadband levels, and the roundtrip time to the server will also have an impact in a contention situation.


Through protocol prioritization on some (probably expensive) routers you can give certain types of traffic precedence over others, and set a range for the bandwidth available for them - but even Ciscos typically only have 4 levels of prioritization.

Any solution you want would most likely involve a separate machine (that always has to be powered on) to act as the gateway and do the throttling, and you might find that some methods cap the maximum bandwidth so the clients never get the full available throughput, they get an artificial ceiling.
Here's an example:
http://www.bandwidthcontroller.com/index.html

[liquid-fix]

I've seen manufacturer specs of routers that do what i'm after, i just can't fidn where to buy them. We have looked at using a seperate machine as a server and it is still a possibility.

[Butuz]

The servers you are connecting with will have an impact - you rarely get the maximum throughput your connection can handle from a single server anyway once you get to broadband levels

Gotta disagree with that - having a 10mbit leased line at work i can tell you that the number of sites that i get more than 200kb/second on is very high, even random websites with a video on, or peoples ISP given websites, often get anything from 200k/s to 1mb/s.

Butuz

[Paul Adams]

But the maximum throughput a 10Mbps connection should be capable of is ~1.3Mb per second - do you often go to sites where that is the speed you attain?

akamai.com is one of the few hosts where I can download at that kind of rate consistently.

[Butuz]

No - there are not too many sites that i get over a meg a second off. Probably think of 10 if i sat down and thought about it.

But as i said - there and many many sites (most infact) i get from between 200kb/s to 1mb/s off, and as im sure the number of people who have broadband at home and can get more than 200kb/s to 1mb/s is pretty low, i still have to disagree with what ya wrote.



Butuz

[Moby-Dick]

A Vigor Draytek 2600 Plus can be used to allocate bandwidth between the 4 ports on it.

failing that , you could build a clarkconnect box in gateway mode and use that bandwidth limiting in that.

[Paul Adams]

Furry nuff, just from my experience of 512Kbps DSL, 1Mbps DSL and 4Mbps leased line as sole user on the network I rarely came across sites that gave used all available bandwidth at my end.
And almost never with my 10Mbps home connection now

But then, I suppose it's entirely possible that my browsing habits are atypical, I do tend to go for the very latest releases of software so I am probably contending with thousands of other users


Edit:
Oooh, nice find Moby, didn't know there were any home/SOHO routers with that level of functionality

[Butuz]

Furry nuff, just from my experience of 512Kbps DSL, 1Mbps DSL and 4Mbps leased line as sole user on the network I rarely came across sites that gave used all available bandwidth at my end.
And almost never with my 10Mbps home connection now

But then, I suppose it's entirely possible that my browsing habits are atypical, I do tend to go for the very latest releases of software so I am probably contending with thousands of other users

It must be - either that, or your ISP's use old P100's recycled from schools for routers?

Only kidding

Butuz

[Paul Adams]

It must be - either that, or your ISP's use old P100's recycled from schools for routers?

Only kidding

Butuz

I'd definitely believe that of Energis Squared, possibly believe that of Your Communications, but Eclipse seemed pretty good

Did I read that Eclipse got bought by Kingston Communications recently?