Limit bandwidth of users on network so it does not get bogged down?

[NBAJ2K]

I live in a house that has 5 or 6 people all plugged into a Linksys router. I wanted to know, is there a way to limit the amount of bandwidth each user can use at one time? One person my be downloading something and using all the bandwidth, and everyone else's internet connections crawl or barely work at all.

If there was a way that would automatically detect how many users were using the internet and reallocate bandwidth as necessary but I'm sure that's not possible.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I was hoping there would be a free solution as I don't need anything fancy.

Thank you very much,

~J

 

[jlazzaro]

which model / version linksys? check out dd-wrt for the use of QoS features. a standalone machine running something like smoothwall would be even more ideal.

if your roommates arent computer savy, you may be able to sneak something onto their pc's to limit their bandwidth such a netlimiter.