Sharing ADSL bandwith equally between 4 "users"

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Buffel_banger

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I need some advice and/or ideas on implementing the following scenario:

I own 4 adjoining apartments. Currently, the one has a wireless ADSL router in it proving wi-fi internet to the occupant. It has, amongst other things, MAC filtering enabled so that only the occupant's PS3 and laptop are able to utilise it. Now I'd like to upgrade the line to a 4Mb, and provide internet facility to the other 3 neighboring apartments too.

My requirements are as follows:
- each apartment should only every be allowed to utilize 1Mb max, irrespective of who else is currently utilizing the service.
- there might be 2 or 3 devices per apartment; these devices will have to share the 1Mb allocated to that apartment
- must be able to implement a fixed cap per apartment, say eg 10gig per month.
- must be able to still filter by MAC

(this almost looks like a scenario exam question in a MS exam :p)

I would appreciate any ideas you might have.

EDIT: IPCop has previously been suggested but I have no knowledge or experience with it.
 
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IPCop is definitely a solution you'd like to look at. It's linux and you'd have a learning curve with it (installing it at least/testing to see if it works) but it's got a web interface so no spooky "zomg what's the command for checking my email" linux stuff.

It should do everything you want it to
 
I believe with a Openweb Gold uncapped account you should be able to do it but it may be a pain to setup.

Basically you are allowed 4 concurrent connections 1 @ 4mbps 2 @ 2mbps each and 4 @ 1mbps each.
So if each apartment has one gateway then shares it with the other devices on the network it could work.

Basically you setup the router in bridged mode then connect each gateway (standard PC) to that router and setup a pppoe connection then share that connection with the other devices.

The only issue here is you will all be on the same network.

Otherwise a Linux box will be your best bet.

GL! :)
 
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Best scenario here would be to setup a firewall pc.
As someone mentioned, there is IPCop. Another alternative (more power, versatility, but also harder to work with) is MicroTIC.
 
Buffel_banger said:
- each apartment should only every be allowed to utilize 1Mb max, irrespective of who else is currently utilizing the service.
Click to expand...
Why? Ideally you'd want everyone to have access to 4mb...as long as the line is clear. Else most of the line capacity will sit idle most of the time.
 
Buffel_banger said:
I need some advice and/or ideas on implementing the following scenario:

I own 4 adjoining apartments. Currently, the one has a wireless ADSL router in it proving wi-fi internet to the occupant. It has, amongst other things, MAC filtering enabled so that only the occupant's PS3 and laptop are able to utilise it. Now I'd like to upgrade the line to a 4Mb, and provide internet facility to the other 3 neighboring apartments too.

My requirements are as follows:
- each apartment should only every be allowed to utilize 1Mb max, irrespective of who else is currently utilizing the service.
- there might be 2 or 3 devices per apartment; these devices will have to share the 1Mb allocated to that apartment
- must be able to implement a fixed cap per apartment, say eg 10gig per month.
- must be able to still filter by MAC

(this almost looks like a scenario exam question in a MS exam :p)

I would appreciate any ideas you might have.

EDIT: IPCop has previously been suggested but I have no knowledge or experience with it.
Click to expand...
Ah man, thats seriously gonna suck for the current dude if he jams some PS online while all 3 others are cranking some torrentz, whahaha :p
Epic lag!

But yeah, IPCop is your friend. Just get someone to sort it out for you...shouldn't be that expensive.
 
I am using smoothwall at the moment, similar to ipcop with a few differences but very stable and works beautifully. You can set it up to allow a maximum bandwidth per user and allow multiple logins by the same username. (so each apartment gets a username and password).

You can also set up a maximum amount of bandwidth before it cuts the user off.
 
Anyone who recommends you "popping" your router into bridged mode and let them use their own ADSL accounts are a bit uninformed sadly.

Yes, each of them will dial-up with their own ADSL accounts, but the line won't be split in 4. It would only take 1 of them to saturate the entire bandwidth available (torrents and heavy downloads) and make the internet experience for the other 3 intolerable.

That is because you're limited by bandwidth on the line, and dialing up 4 times doesn't split that equally. It's usually on a first come first serve basis.

Having said that, IPCop is able to do port-shaping. So any gaming ports could be given priority (even over http/mail). So you could streamline it for gaming traffic from the get go, since the one who won't be gaming, won't notice much throttling going on doing his normal surfing/streaming.

You can even set it up as a proxy to cache bigger than x mb files. That way any windows or itunes (or whatever) updates can live on there and 3 people would benefit off of 1 person's update. I'd also move away from wifi in this case and check to see if I can't lay cable (and perhaps house the linux machine in the ceiling with a UPS backup). This way you get rid of any pesky hacking that may go on.
 
m1k3072 said:
I've used Smoothwall Express before. It will allow you to monitor per user's usage but won't cut them off so there will be some admin.

I can't recall if it can shape connections either and you will need an external access point. Full feature list here: http://www.smoothwall.org/about/express-feature-list/
Click to expand...

This too looks like it could do the trick: http://www.wifihotspot.cn/software-tools/easyhotspot/

As the other guys have suggested, setting the router to bridged is probably the easiest option as mine require a seperate dedicated PC.
 
AcidRaZor said:
Anyone who recommends you "popping" your router into bridged mode and let them use their own ADSL accounts are a bit uninformed sadly.

Yes, each of them will dial-up with their own ADSL accounts, but the line won't be split in 4. It would only take 1 of them to saturate the entire bandwidth available (torrents and heavy downloads) and make the internet experience for the other 3 intolerable.

That is because you're limited by bandwidth on the line, and dialing up 4 times doesn't split that equally. It's usually on a first come first serve basis.

Having said that, IPCop is able to do port-shaping. So any gaming ports could be given priority (even over http/mail). So you could streamline it for gaming traffic from the get go, since the one who won't be gaming, won't notice much throttling going on doing his normal surfing/streaming.

You can even set it up as a proxy to cache bigger than x mb files. That way any windows or itunes (or whatever) updates can live on there and 3 people would benefit off of 1 person's update. I'd also move away from wifi in this case and check to see if I can't lay cable (and perhaps house the linux machine in the ceiling with a UPS backup). This way you get rid of any pesky hacking that may go on.
Click to expand...

My bad I did say sorry, relax.
 
HavocXphere said:
Why? Ideally you'd want everyone to have access to 4mb...as long as the line is clear. Else most of the line capacity will sit idle most of the time.
Click to expand...

I'm happy with line sitting idle at times. I don't want them to have 4mb and get used to enjoying it, and then whenever the others get on and start using the service and they get throttled down to 1Mb end up with complaints and grumpy tenants. If they have 1Mb available at all times and only 1Mb they know what they have and what they can expect. If I just let them have the full 4Mb during quiet times they start expecting it as the norm.

Thanx to all those that have replied so far. I see some good advice that I can follow up on.

Just a bit of extra information: I am quite happy, and quite honestly expect to be using a dedicated PC as firewall/proxy device.
 
Buffel_banger said:
I'm happy with line sitting idle at times. I don't want them to have 4mb and get used to enjoying it, and then whenever the others get on and start using the service and they get throttled down to 1Mb end up with complaints and grumpy tenants.
Click to expand...
Telkom is always looking for a new CEO...you should apply. :p
 
Buffel_banger said:
Just a bit of extra information: I am quite happy, and quite honestly expect to be using a dedicated PC as firewall/proxy device.
Click to expand...

Fascinating thread. If you are looking for a dedicated pc, Tarsus have THESE babies on special till the end of the month. Going for about R1099 excluding. Killer deal. Thinking of getting one for a torrent pc. Low power usage, and you can even pop in 3 more hard drives if you want to expand the network functionality. (Share a crap load of files between everyone) which could also contribute to less double torrented files and general warm feelings between all the tenants.
 
francoislr said:
Fascinating thread. If you are looking for a dedicated pc, Tarsus have THESE babies on special till the end of the month. Going for about R1099 excluding. Killer deal. Thinking of getting one for a torrent pc. Low power usage, and you can even pop in 3 more hard drives if you want to expand the network functionality. (Share a crap load of files between everyone) which could also contribute to less double torrented files and general warm feelings between all the tenants.
Click to expand...

That is a great idea, I might just get one of those. And like you say, I can even share some files which will be appreciated by everyone.
 
A lot of games uses P2P for its connections which means its going to need more. The best solution in such cases is to upgrade your bandwidth or get another connection. Unless you install something like Cfos speed on the pcs to do traffic shaping
 
If i was you I would go for a simple solution

I would rather get a Mikrotik 750 Router for approx R310 ex vat
Connect port one to adsl modem
Connect port two to access point
On the Mikrotik 750 setup hotspot, their you can make users and specify how much data they can use and connection limits, you can also set the TX /RX rates in bytes. The mikrotik router is also quite feature full, you can run QOS, VPN Server, DNS, NTP Server, etc and it all fits in a small Access point size box. It uses little electricity so its not so power hungry as a actual pc running IP cop or something similar. Plus you can config it in many different ways such as via its web interface, winbox, telnet, ssh.

The users then connect to the wireless network and then are redirected to a login page where they put their details in , authenticate and they are connected

hope this helps
 
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