How to manage bandwidth to make sure that downloads don't take all the internet?

[Kamunkin]

Hi! 

I need some help with managing my bandwidth. We have a 120 mBit/s download connection. My life partner downloads a ton of stuff which takes all the connection and I'd like to fix that once and for all. I don't know if it is possible, but I'd like to have a portion of the bandwidth always available so the internet is not all sucked up to one place. I have an Asus rt-ac66u router. I don't know how to measure this, but I'd like the equivalent of both of us playing moba of free bandwidth, or watching 1080p/Netflix/Plex/Youtube. I just want to make sure that even if we are downloading, our quality of life isn't affected. Also, is there a way that the router knows that we don't play or use it so it could give back all the available bandwidth? If not I don't care I mainly need a solution so I don't have a crazy ping and lag all the time when I play.

Sorry for my bad english.. 

 

Is there a term to call what I want?

[Fraser Cow]

Most routers have traffic shaping settings to allow a specific IP address a certain amount of bandwidth.  Some routers have settings to make sure a certain IP always has at least X number of bandwidth, that way your partner will always have full availability of the internet until you start using it, in winch case it'll take away what you need from them.

[tzxazrael]

just to add; "traffic shaping" might also be referred to as "Quality of Service" (QoS) management.

 

if your router doesn't offer any such features, many downloading programs offer an option to cap their own bandwidth for upload and/or download.

so if your best download speed, eating all of the internet is say, 2MB/second, then telling it to limit bandwidth to 1.5MB/s will still leave lots of room for typical web-browsing and other regular usage. 

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, Kamunkin said:

Hi! 

I need some help with managing my bandwidth. We have a 120 mBit/s download connection. My life partner downloads a ton of stuff which takes all the connection and I'd like to fix that once and for all. I don't know if it is possible, but I'd like to have a portion of the bandwidth always available so the internet is not all sucked up to one place. I have an Asus rt-ac66u router. I don't know how to measure this, but I'd like the equivalent of both of us playing moba of free bandwidth, or watching 1080p/Netflix/Plex/Youtube. I just want to make sure that even if we are downloading, our quality of life isn't affected. Also, is there a way that the router knows that we don't play or use it so it could give back all the available bandwidth? If not I don't care I mainly need a solution so I don't have a crazy ping and lag all the time when I play.

Sorry for my bad english.. 

 

Is there a term to call what I want?

Your talking QoS. The issue here is some routers have it and some dont. The other issue is on many consumer grade products its implemented poorly. Also how much control you have depends on the routers as well. For example from what I have seen on my Synology router, I can set limits on bandwidth usage by device or guarantee a min amount of bandwidth for a device. Though with multiple streamers in the house and such, I have never had any issues on my 100/10 connection.

 

Is your life partner torrenting? If so, that eats up the upload and that can affect downloads as well. You can set limits in the torrent program so you dont take down your entire network. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

Torrenting is definitely a big deal, it can bring your average consumer router to its knees on connections alone, even if its not using much bandwidth.

 

As I keep saying, I ended up switching to a PC running pfSense because at the time I couldn't find a consumer router that could handle QoS for an 80Mbit connection.  The best router I have right now (strictly for WiFi only) maxes out its CPU if I start transferring files over WiFi, which would impact on the Internet performance.

 

So its not always just Internet use that can cause issues.

[Kamunkin]

To answer if my partner is torrenting, yes he is. He uses NZBget. I just found where I can set a download rate. But how much should I put? Because we're told that we have 120/20 mBits of download/upload., but in reality this isn't exactly true. So how do we know or true download power and speed and what could be a good number to put in there?

 

I also looked at my router's settings and I found QoS. But if setting the download rate in NZBget, should I use the router anyway?