Distributing bandwidth equally

[jont]

We are 6 people sharing a 25mb/2mb internet connection that is coming in through a modem we got from the ISP. I've attached a wireless router to the modem, and it's working okay – we are able to connect throughout the house.

BUT: When somebody does some heavy downloading, it cripples the connection for the others.

QoS could be a solution to the problem, but if I understand correctly QoS works on the application/port level, favouring certain applications or ports.
I would like "QoS" on the client level, but with equal priority i.e., every connected client is entitled to and equal "slice" of the bandwidth.
As a result, everybody should be guaranteed at least a 6th of the bandwidth, but at times when somebody is idle they could get more.

Our current router (netgear WNR1100) doesn't fulfil this requirement, and I can't seem to find any other router that does.

Do you know any routers that might do what I'm asking? Or maybe a different solution to the problem?

Thanks

 

[occamsrazor]

On some QoS you can assign priority based on the client IP address, but generally you would use that to give one machine priority over other traffic, I'm not sure whether that could be used to ensure each client gets equal traffic.

As a result, everybody should be guaranteed at least a 6th of the bandwidth, but at times when somebody is idle they could get more.

Another way would be to use an IP/MAC address based bandwidth limiter, to limit the potential bandwidth of each client to a set amount. What I'm not sure of is whether that amount could be overrided automatically in the case that no-one else is using the connection.

Some of the most flexible QoS (in my opinion) is found with Tomato firmware:

http://www.linksysinfo.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=160

...but you'd probably have to buy another router, however there are some relatively cheap and compatible ones available (see bottom of this link):

http://tomatousb.org/doc:build-types

If you think the IP/MAC bandwidth limiter is what you want, then you want "Victek"'s version of the Tomato firmware:

http://victek.is-a-geek.com/tomato.html

...or look in the Linksysinfo forum for threads about Victek and "RAF" firmware.

This is all assuming you are comfortable flashing 3rd Party router firmware... it's actually not as hard as you might think.

EDIT: This screenshot (not mine) would imply the IP/MAC limiter would indeed do what you want - i.e. set a download/upload guaranteed amount, and also a download/upload "ceiling" amount - applied to each computer via IP/MAC address. But if you want to go down this route, maybe post a question in the Linsysinfo forum linked above to be sure.

 

[thiggins]

See Taming Your Network's Bandwidth Hogs - Part 1,
Taming Your Network's Bandwidth Hogs - Part 2
Smart Switch How to - Part 3: Bandwidth Control

 

[occamsrazor]

what about bandwidth monitor you can try use **** It;s really nice prog)

...which won't help at all in this case because it runs on the Mac, not on the router, and therefore can only tell you what is going in or out of that particular machine, not the network generally.