How to limit download speed per port on the network?

Question

Greetings,

I have several computers accessing the Internet at once. And with one download a file using a download manager (either bittorrent, orbit, etc.), the computer with that softwares grabs almost all the bandwidth then.

Is there a way to limit the bandwidth to be used per computer so that even with a download manager, all computers share the same bandwidth speed (I'm pertaining to the download speed)?

I have these switch connected to a main switch directly connected to the modem. All computers utilize Windows XP Professional.

Your response is highly appreciated.

Answer 1

Some routers can limit bandwidth per port or per client or per address block using QoS. The exact method of doing it (if at all) would depend on the model of router you have. If you are only using switches in a parallel configuration with static IPs then no, unless you can talk your ISP into setting it up for you (which some will per IP or IP block for a price).

Answer 2

Depending on how big a problem this is, next generation firewalls are designed to do this (disclaimer - I used to work for Sonicwall) and might be worth a look. Next generation firewalls go beyond IP address and port level granularity and allow you to set policy at the firewall based on the application the traffic belongs to - so if you want to rate limit an application or create a bandwidth reservation for it or block it without affecting other applications using that port or protocol, you can do it - it's very effective but does require you to buy a new device. You can also set policy based on users - so you could set a rule to prevent any one user using more than 50% bandwidth or something like that, depends how you want to structure the ruleset and what legitimate usage looks like.

Answer 3

If you are running a Windows based operating system limit bandwidth on each node through Active Directory.

Install the web server role, this will give you more options similar to Group Policy.

Also, like someone else said, you could use QOS, but this option would take longer than creating a template and deploying it.