Which router can limit bandwidth?

I am planning to buy an N router. Is there a router out there that can limit bandwidth? My internet connection is 10mb/s. But I would like to set it up so that every wireless connection only gets a max download speed of 1mb/s. Is that possible? Which router would I be looking at? And feature?

 

Its the firmware that lets you limit the bandwidths and QoS. Most of the routers ive come across do not have this option built-in.

The DD-WRT firmware (third-party) for Linksys routers adds in this option.

See here, Ive set the maximum download/upload speed to 512/900kbps for everyone in the network but you can see that some mac address/users are exempted from this limit (or prioritized)

 

Why hard-code that limit? It seems to me it would be a bit of a waste if you've only got one system connected, since that system would only get 1mb/s and the other 90% of your bandwidth capacity would, in effect, be going to waste.

Many routers do allow QoS settings, so if you set everything to the same priority level, no one will be able to trump anyone else in terms of the amount of bandwidth available, and as a result the total bandwidth will be shared equally amongst all connected systems.

 

As Shyster said above, this would almost be impractical to set a limit. What would be a more suitable option would be, if you're trying to give yourself the higher priority, get a router that allows you to prioritise who or what gets the highest bandwidth.

 

Get yourself a linksys wrt-54g and add dd-wrt firmware.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv3/

However, if you are getting this used, avoid the version 7, as it does not support wrt-dd

for what it is worth, since you didn't explain what you are trying to do, I agree with everyone, but that is a router and a third party firmware that will do it.

 

So say if I got a router like D-Link 825 with QoS. It will successfully distribute the download speed to the # of users connected, right? Say if one person is downloading a lot, bitorrent and HD youtube. Will the other users be affected if I got the above router?

 

I'll leave the D-Link for others to answer, as I'm not 100% sure. Personally I've went through maybe 7 routers this year, all for the same issue. Performance was terrible when torrenting or streaming on all the computers.

My current router (Sitecom WL-308 Gaming Router) has built in 'traffic shaping' that prioritises gaming over anything else. I haven't messed with any of the priorities at all, and it works fantastic when I torrent. Previously I didn't have a hope in hell of gaming while torrenting - now I can keep a solid 80 ping on a wired connection, 150 wireless, without any issues. Although 150 ping may sound high-ish, it's perfectly acceptable for any games I've been playing.

The downside of course is it's a very pricey router, so wait until you hear back from the D-Link guys :-D

 

Is there a way to block torrenting for people connecting wireless?

 

If you get a Router that supports QoS and Access Restrictions then you should be able to limit and/or block Clients and Applications such as Torrents.

For example, on my Router configured with DD-WRT I have the option under the QoS tab to limit the bandwidth of Clients by either their IP Address, MAC Address, or by the Port they're using. Here I can also limit how much bandwidth is given to applications; such as Torrents. I can also give priority to Client computers the same way.

Under my Access Restrictions tab I have the option to limit and block Client machines Internet Access and applications such as Torrents. I have the Linksys WRT54G2 and WRT54G which by default doesn't come with these features; so therefore I had to update them with a third-party firmware such as DD-WRT to unlock the said features.

Edit: Usually Routers would have default apps that you can choose in a list to be blocked; if the Torrent you want blocked isn't in the list to choose from you can always manually block/limit it by adding the Port # it uses. As for which Routers out there come with these options by default I honestly have no idea.

Hope this helps.

 

You have to understand with torrents however, there's plenty of ways to get around things like this. This is exactly what ISPs do, and exactly what torrenters try to get around. For example most torrent programs allow you to encrypt your data, meaning it isn't seen as 'torrent' data. Also you can change port, so port blocking is useless too.

 

Does anybody know if the D-Link 825 have the Access Restriction makaveli72 was talking about?

 

One of the reasons you have problems with torrents is the dynamic NAT translations that are going on. When I was using my WRT54GL with DD-wrt I would still lock up my router while torrenting. The faster speeds you want...the more seeds you had to connect to. I have since upgraded to a Cisco 1812 (Overkill for 95% of people) I have hit times where I hit upto 8000 dynamic NAT translations. Also running QoS.

Most out of the box routers cannot handle that.

 

Well whatever the issue was then, I managed to get it sorted with the WL-308 =-) It's good to know what the issue was though, it always ticked me off.

 

Isn't tomato better than DD-WRT.

I use Tomato on my ASUS WL-520GU

 

the best third party firmware is the one you feel most comfortable with