I Need Timed Bandwidth Control - WNDR3700v2 - Gargoyle Or DD-WRT?

[liquidfluidity]

My current ISP provider has implemented a new "data useage" policy and we now have limits. I have a couple of kids(and mother in-law) that like to stay up all night and stream and play online games. Needless to say, last month turned out being almost a hundred gigs over the allotted amount. I would like to figure out a way to cut/slow the bandwidth down between certain times of the day to help "fix" this issue and make things a little easier on my wallet as once you go over, said ISP charges $10/50Gb block. So, I'm looking into using a modified firmware to give me some bandwidth control. I have no experience in using these and my networking knowledge is bare minimum - but I can read and follow instructions Will either firmwares offer me the control that I'm looking for ? I don't really want to buy a new router as this one has served me quite well.

Opinions, experience, linkage - all welcomed

 

[thekipper]

I have the same router but my advise would be the following:

1. Make them go to bed....they can read or do something else.

2. Set a rule limiting screen time.

3. Make them get a job if they are old enough so they don't have so much free time and can help pay for their usage.

I'm not trying to be a smartazz either.

 

[liquidfluidity]

Didn't take it as being a smartass. I always expect the usual parenting response when I ask about setting internet limits and timers. I forgot to mention that we take care of my wife's mother(80yrs) who likes to stream Netflix for extended amounts of latenight time....

 

[thekipper]

Didn't take it as being a smartass. I always expect the usual parenting response when I ask about setting internet limits and timers. I forgot to mention that we take care of my wife's mother(80yrs) who likes to stream Netflix for extended amounts of latenight time....

Ahh, I gotcha. The parenting thing is always sensitive (parent of 2). I assume you don't have cable otherwise they could just watch TV. If you don't have cable and can get some OTA HD, that would at least get some free non-bandwidth using TV going for you at a minimal cost.

I'm sure there ways to limit the bandwidth but I don't have a clue short of unplugging the modem and putting it away for the night

 

[liquidfluidity]

No cable - satellite. Not a whole lot of interest in tv here.

I just want to slow everything up a bit - especially mom. I'm somewhat sure that most of the later usage is from streaming Netflix. If I can control the bandwidth, it will solve my issue. It's very hard to police the seven people in my household

 

[unab0mb]

I won't get into how much my household (3 boys + me and the wife) uses the internet for gaming, streaming, downloading, music, browsing, etc. We do not have cable TV so all of it comes over the net.

I can't speak to DD-WRT, etc. since my router comes with this functionality built in so I never flashed it with anything else. BUT, one thing that made a BIG difference for me is to log in to your Netflix settings and set the streaming quality to the lowest that you can. For us, everything still looks great even on a 42'' TV in the living room. It's a little pixelated the first 15 seconds or so but immediately clears up. It's a good compromise if you're not a crazy videophile and will save a lot of bandwidth.

 

[teh_chem]

Ddwrt has the ability to set speed limits. I have v1 of that router, put ddwrt and it ran fine, though I never tried the bandwidth limit feature.

 

[liquidfluidity]

Are the speed limit settings per mac address or for everything? Either would work for me. I need to get some more Googling done....

Is there a general consensus as to which firmware works best or is easiest to use?

Thanks on the Netflix adjustment. Not sure if I've ever looked at it.

 

[Mackintire]

Yea... there are many things that you COULD do depending on the hardware and firmware feature set.

If you decided to traffic shape her via the router:

Uninhibited Nexflix will stream up to 5.2Mbps on some content. If she somehow managed to download at this bitrate for 6 hours a day every day her monthly data consumption would be roughly 435GB.

Taking Grandma's Netflix enabled device and limiting it to 3Mbps would essentially lock her into the lower HD bitrates. 6 hours a day, for every day of the month and she'll only be able to download about 180-200GB max

Drop her down to 2.5Mbps you'll end up with something roughly superior to DVD quality 130-150GB a month max (this is as low as I would go for my personal viewing tastes)

Dropping her down to 2Mbps would drop her down under DVD level video quality, close to laserdisc quality, 100-130GB a month max.

Dropping her down to 1.5Mbps is soft looking SD akin to a good VCR tape quality 90-100GB per month max.


As for the firmware, I would use gargoyle... Set the QOS to filter her Netflix device by IP or MAC address and apply a maximum allowed bandwidth policy. I'd start with 2500Kbps and drop to 2000kbps if proven necessary, keep dropping in 500kbps chunks until you reach 1500kbps which is the minimum Netflix suggests for streaming.

 

[diizzy]

You can't limit inbound, the traffic will still hit your connection its just the router that'll drop it which makes it pointless. The only throttling you can do is to drop as much packets as it becomes unusable.
//Danne

 

[teh_chem]

You can't limit inbound, the traffic will still hit your connection its just the router that'll drop it which makes it pointless. The only throttling you can do is to drop as much packets as it becomes unusable.
//Danne

Good point.

If it's primarily a Netflix issue, you can reduce the bitrate quality under your account profile settings (assuming you don't have to worry about anyone changing them back). Other things... Not sure of the best solution

 

[liquidfluidity]

I think I'm going to "de-tune" netflix and then I'm also going to install Gargoyle. It seems to have the feature set that I'm looking for. Been Googling and reading up on the different modified firmware sites. Thanks for replying and all of the input!