Why don't more routers have bandwidth monitoring and Management Capability?

[Sg45]

I started getting calls from my cable internet provider in June telling me I was approaching (and eventually exceeding) my monthly bandwidth usage limit and would be charged in "blocks" for extra usage.

I started trying to discover what devices in my home were using so much bandwidth and found that most network devices had an astonishing lack of management capability.

My Cable Modem was useless.
My LinkSys WRT/1900 AC state of the art router wasn't much better
My Apple Gen 3 Time Capsule had SNMP and UPnP services dropped from it all together (Gen 2 TC was the last version with support).

My provider (Comcast) has a metering tool that I could look at but it only told me aggregate bandwidth coming from the modem (and like I trust Comcast to get it right).

I ended up researching the topic and the best solution to get device by device usage and management capability was to buy an older TP-Link router and flash it with Gargoyle firmware.

While I now have a very good solution for managing my own usage, I don't think the average person would ever do what I did. With the "Internet of Things" using more and more bandwidth (Nest, DropCam, Apple TV, et.c), why isn't there an easier way to manage usage?

Your thoughts please?

 

[azazel1024]

Because it isn't a feature most users know or care about. Simple as that. If most users wanted, router manufacturers would add it.

Also, the more bells and whistles, the more it costs them. That also add overhead on the router itself.

Actually possibly when easy solution is get an L2 semi-managed switch. Most of them that I have seen have per port bandwidth monitoring (mine does).

AFAIK all consumer routers I have seen that have bandwidth monitoring only show net aggregate WAN to LAN and LAN to WAN. They don't monitor per IP. That would add extra processing overhead and likely not something that could be hardware accelerated (at the level of a consumer router).

I guess part of it too is, why do you need it in a home? Not so much simple bandwidth monitoring, but per device level network monitoring? Its kind of one of those, you'd think you'd have a vague idea how much you were using different devices/services. On a router level that has bandwidth monitoring, if you are unsure, keep most devices/service quisesant, and then spin up each individual device/service and see what kind of average bandwidth it is using. Then calculator to figure out how much in a month you might be using it.

I don't disagree it would be a nice feature to have, but I don't think it is something most users care about, so we won't see it.

 

[KingFatty]

Doesn't DD-WRT offer this? Do you have a router that you can install this aftermarket firmware on, then enable bandwidth monitoring.

 

[JackMDS]

My LinkSys WRT/1900 AC state of the art router wasn't much better

While I now have a very good solution for managing my own usage, I don't think the average person would ever do what I did. With the "Internet of Things" using more and more bandwidth (Nest, DropCam, Apple TV, et.c), why isn't there an easier way to manage usage?

Your thoughts please?

AFAIK Belkin/Linksys never had a State of the Art Device.

It is based on Marvel Chipset and currently can not use 3rd party firmware.

On the other hand the Asus Router fro about $100 and above can use DD-WRT and there is a variety of ways to measure Bandwidth with them.

Example - General Bandwidth by MAC address of the clients - http://infodepot.wikia.com/wiki/Bandwidth_Monitor_for_DD-WRT

In General - http://www.flashrouters.com/blog/2014/07/01/bandwidth-monitoring-with-dd-wrt/

If it was my problem I would head Up to eBay and offer the Linksys.

Then, add some money (if needed) and buy real good flexible Router that can provide the missing function.

Here you can see the line of the Asus Line that do DD-WRT and provide Bandwidth measures.

http://www.asus.com/us/site/routers/DD-WRT/

The RT‑AC68U is a 1900 Wireless and the same price and general specs as your Linksys.

From my perspective the Best price performance of the Asus line is the RT‑N66U

P.S. in real life the difference between 1900 and 900 is not as the Model number is suggesting.

One have to understand what his/her Wireless needs really are and choose wisely.

As an example The 1900 Linksys - http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/rankers/router/result/1563-linksys-wrt1900ac

A $70 less expensive 900 Asus - http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/rankers/router/result/1113-asus-rtn66u-dark-knight

 

[Thor86]

PRTG

 

[Red Squirrel]

Best bet is roll your own using pfsense. I can't imagine going back to a consumer router. Only thing though is the graphs arn't really "monthly" but rather, last 30 days so you'd still have to kinda figure things out on your own. But it would at least give you a general idea on how much bandwidth you consumed in different time periods. (hour, day, week, month, year).