Prioritizing internet usage when renting out a house

[misfiringsystem]

I'll be renting out a house very soon to several students, and I was wondering what can I do to ensure that all the students get equal bandwidth to internet, or at least, no person would be able to hog all the internet so that others can't work at all?

Thanks

 

[GregN]

Depending on your router, you can set limits to how much any node, or by node, can eat of your bandwidth.

This is often in your QOS service settings, or can be called traffic shaping, for example in pfSense, a free router distro, it is called the penalty box (part of the traffic shaping wizard).

To set the limits you often will need to know your up and down internet speeds.

What Router do you have?

 

[thiggins]

Taming Your Network's Bandwidth Hogs - Part 1 - pfSense

Taming Your Network's Bandwidth Hogs - Part 2

Check the Router Finder , use the QoS filter and set Type and Direction to Both to find suitable products we've reviewed.

 

[misfiringsystem]

Right now, I don't have a router for the house yet.

^Why does it have to be both? I'm asking because most of the routers I found using the router finder were either really pricey or I can't get them locally

Would it be possible to do it with a regular router running those 3rd party firmware?



Thanks

 

[thiggins]

Both will find the most routers that support download bandwidth QoS, which is what you want.

 

[GregN]

Right now, I don't have a router for the house yet.

As Tim points out, and I suggested, pfSense, a router form of FreeBSD, has one of the best facilities available for managing bandwidth. In addition it provides for high speed caching using a proxy server, bandwidth monitoring, and such niceties as intrusion detection and antivirus, all on your network perimeter. Best of all it is free.

If you have an old PC, and can add a NIC (~$30), and use old router - with that you can have the same capabilities as those expensive unattainable routers, if not a lot more.

Installation, and set-up is well documented and almost turn-key. Take a look at pfSense.org and here at SNB, with quite a few articles and forum posts explicating every detail you will need.

Hope that helps

 

[misfiringsystem]

Pardon my ignorance, but can I do it with ddwrt or open tomato?

Reason I'm asking is I want to get something local so I can return it without too much hassle. The only one available are the engenius, but it says they are not wifi certified, and I tried searching that up and still don't know wha it means.

And I tried looking up pfsense and it looks kind of complicated.

Sorry again for my ignorance

 

[thiggins]

Last I looked at DD-WRT, its bandwidth management was upload only. Never looked at Tomato.

If you want simple, pay the money and get an router with bi-directional bandwidth control built in.

 

[misfiringsystem]

I have one more question, what is "not Wifi-Certified"?

I tried reading it up, but I don't have a clue as to what it means.

 

[thiggins]

http://www.wi-fi.org/certified_products.php

 

[ynohtna]

perfect topic for me... Didn't even have to search yet I have renter in my house and part of the deal is to share my internet.

I'm not interested in using an old box as it will need to be controlled in my bedroom closet so will be looking for something as quiet as possible.

Will just need to search to see what routers or pfsense will work the best for me I guess!

 

[GregN]

I'm not interested in using an old box as it will need to be controlled in my bedroom closet so will be looking for something as quiet as possible.

Take a look at the pfSense article, I used a funky Antec case, that has one big slow moving fan that is as close to silent as a fan can get ( I too wanted no noise since it was next to the TV ).

I went with an Atom D525, but an atom 510, maybe the Hummingbird board from Asus, I suspect you could go without a fan at all. Another green choice is the Zotac IONITX MBs....

 

[Gronnie]

perfect topic for me... Didn't even have to search yet I have renter in my house and part of the deal is to share my internet.

I'm not interested in using an old box as it will need to be controlled in my bedroom closet so will be looking for something as quiet as possible.

Will just need to search to see what routers or pfsense will work the best for me I guess!

I know if I was renting from you and found out you were restricting my bandwith I would be very upset. Are you going to let the renter know about this before he moves in?

 

[GregN]

I know if I was renting from you and found out you were restricting my bandwith I would be very upset. Are you going to let the renter know about this before he moves in?

If you moved in with me, I'd say we were *sharing* the bandwidth - restriction yes, but reasonably I would think (unless I was charging you full freight on the net connection ). Pay for half, get half, yes?

 

[ynohtna]

I know if I was renting from you and found out you were restricting my bandwith I would be very upset. Are you going to let the renter know about this before he moves in?

Sorry, my house my rules They can always get their own unrestricted service

 

[ynohtna]

Another green choice is the Zotac IONITX MBs....

Wow that's cool cause of the laptop style power supply (IONITX-A)! I don't even plan to have a case for it, just leave it on a shelf in my closet. Maybe the whole thing can stay passive that way. Hook up a small cheap ssd and I'm set?

** oh wait, I need at least 2 NIC eh? **

 

[GregN]

Wow that's cool cause of the laptop style power supply (IONITX-A)! I don't even plan to have a case for it, just leave it on a shelf in my closet. Maybe the whole thing can stay passive that way. Hook up a small cheap ssd and I'm set?

** oh wait, I need at least 2 NIC eh? **

You can get a motherboard with Dual NICs, the hummingbird is dual. You'l need a switch for port expansion ($20), and your old router for wireless - you could use the asus wireless card...