Need Router that allows me to limit everyones internet bandwidth on network

[Muscles]

This summer I'm going to be moving into my new house in Florida and I'll be hosting a lot of LAN events consisting of around 10 people. What I'd like to be able to do is limit everyones computer to a certain amount of bandwidth. That way if several people at the LAN are playing an online game (ie Quake) they can't be interrupted by someone else at the LAN that starts downloading a big file because his bandwidth will be capped.

I've dealt with several netgear and linksys cable/dsl routers and none of them seemed to have the feature that I'm looking for. This brings me to my first question:

1. Are there any affordable routers out there I can buy that let you do what I want?

A friend of mine told me he thought Smoothwall (smoothwall.org) had what I'm looking for which I looked into but it seems that the feature is only available on their expensive software through purchase (http://www.smoothwall.net/products/smoothtraffic3/). I don't want to pay 500 bucks for their corporate firewall. Now my second question:

2. Can I use smoothwall express or some other *free* firewall to accomplish what I want?

Any insight on any of this is much appreciated.

 

[Fiveohhh]

If everyones gonna be on the LAN a router won't do you any good since nothing is going to be passing out your network.

 

[Muscles]

Originally posted by: Fiveohhh
If everyones gonna be on the LAN a router won't do you any good since nothing is going to be passing out your network.

Obviously you didn't even bother reading my post. Look at the example I used. Here's a cut n paste:

"That way if several people at the LAN are playing an online game (ie Quake) they can't be interrupted by someone else at the LAN that starts downloading a big file because his bandwidth will be capped. "

 

[Fiveohhh]

My apologies for trying to help. There are solutions that I'd help you with but I'll be too busy reading other posts more meticulously.

 

[Tommouse]

I actually read your post, and have a possible solution. The Linksys WRT54G. It has QoS (Quality of Service) works like traffic shaping. I just got it, and haven?t gotten to play with all the features of it yet. All I have heard is good things about this router though. I just put on a 3rd party firmware (Sveasoft Alchemy v1.0 Final). Enables many more options. Most importantly to you seems to be the traffic shaping. You can bandwidth limit the 4 physical ports on the router. You can also add in MAC's and set a "priority" I'm not exactly sure what that entails though. Preference for "higher priority" packets over "lesser" would be my guess (captain obvious I know), not sure how this would help you to keep fair bandwidth allocation. There is a "service priority" section, this might be helpful for you. Gives a list of AIM, bittorrent, Counter-Strike, and other common aps, and you can set the whole priority thing again. Hope this helps you out a bit.

 

[Muscles]

Tommouse: Thanks a lot for the info. I'll look into it but any idea if any wired routers have QoS (I guess this is what I need).

 

[queequeg99]

Originally posted by: Muscles
any idea if any wired routers have QoS (I guess this is what I need).

Just turn off the wireless functions of the WRT54G. It will work just like a wired router. After rebates, it costs about $45 so you're not going to save too much by going with a regular wired router.

 

[Tommouse]

No problem. I was looking for just a strait wired router too, then I just caved and got this. Has the features I wanted ( I wanted traffic shaping too, with my roommates next year) but it had wireless, and I already have the Linksys WAP. I didn't want 2 WAP's so I tried to find a wired one, no luck. I have now decided to make an extentended service set with the 2 WAP's.

If just don't like the look of the antena's, they are removable. Just unscrew them.