How to limit download speed on secondary router (in a LAN-LAN setup)

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teo113

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Hi all!
I have a main router in my house and a secondary router in the side building. This side building is rented out to families and guests who want to stay in the area for short holidays. The secondary router is for these guests and it is connected to my primary router with a long ethernet cable. There is no phone line in the side house, so that's the only way I could do it. Router 2 has it's own SSID etc. but the internet is obviously coming from Router 1 in my house.

My router has internet speeds of 20Mbps, but I don't want guests connected to the secondary router hogging my bandwidth. How can I limit the download speed of Router 2 to say, 5Mbps?
I don't think QoS limitations would work because you need MAC addresses of individual devices and limit each one separately. My guests change every week and I'm not asking paying guests to provide MAC addresses each time!

The primary router is a 2014-era BT router and the secondary router in the side house is either a Linksys wireless N WRT310N or WRT160N. (sorry I'm away for a bit and can't remember exactly!)
thanks!
 
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teo113

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From what I've read, QoS can only limit UPLOAD speed right? I want to limit download preferably.
thanks for the suggestion though. Very clever thinking! I'll look into it still.

Still, any more answers are welcome....
 
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Ralston18

Ralston18

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You are welcome.

And, as an afterthought, maybe the QoS could be applied to the primary router LAN port being used by the secondary router....

Probably depends on the BT router.

Then you have may have other firmware options (e.g., Tomato, DD-WRT) if applicable that could be used on the BT router and gain more control over QoS. Could be a bit of a hassle to do that....
 
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Ralston18

Ralston18

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Agreed.

However, I think the QoS you need would have to be on the primary router.

Interesting to consider ways to "self-choke" a downstream router.... Cheap Cat 3 ethernet cable (BT to WRTxxx) maybe ("chuckle"). Configure the Linksys router for an older/slower wireless standard.

More seriously, I took a quick look through the WRT310N user manual. You may be able to apply various restrictions directly on the LAN ports (probably all of them) being used by the guests. Same for the 160.

Manual links:

http://downloads.linksys.com/downloads/userguide/WRT310N_V20_UG_NC-WEB,0.pdf

http://downloads.linksys.com/downloads/userguide/1224640959708/WRT160N_V10_UG_A-WEB.pdf

Probably very straight forward for you to tinker with the guest router and test how well you can really restrict it.

That would keep things simple and also leave the BT alone unless the guest router restrictions are not enought to restrain or otherwise control the bandwidth used by the guests.

Then you can fall back on QoS configuration on the BT router if the secondary router's QoS settings are not enough.

You also will still have the option to consider DD-WRT or Tomato on the guest router. Hopefully someone else here can/will offer some suggestions and options for you with respect to that. However, if so, I would recommend getting a second hand router to work on. Changing firmware on the router can certainly brick it and that is probably something you do not want to risk on the WRTxxx.

Anyway just keep some notes on what you change and do not change too much all at once. Work from simplest up while making changes. Keep your testing consistent and if you find a combination of QoS settings that meet the desired limitations (without serious guest inconvenience to where they complain) then all is good to go. Just be sure to use a secure admin name and password on the guest router. Watch out for guests who might try resetting it to factory settings.
 
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teo113

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bold point 1: yes good idea potentially. I'm looking for a 50m cable though, and the most common to buy online are cat5e and cat6.

bold point 2: the guests won't be using the LAN ports of the second router. they'll be connecting via WiFi.

But thanks, a lot for the tips. when I get around the setting this up, I'll come back and let you know my findings!
 
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Ralston18

Ralston18

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You are welcome.

Don't count on guests not discovering that the LAN ports work better than wireless.... Will not be an issue if you are able to place their router securely out of reach. Plus be sure to have a secure admin name and password for the router. - no default settings.

If you work wired on your side and the guests are restricted to wireless you will have a performance advantage to start with.

Hopefully the simplest approach, i.e., just using QoS on the BT to restrict the guest router (one way or another) will be doable and straightforward to implement.

In any case will look forward to your findings.
 
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teo113

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hi all. So i managed to set up a LAN-LAN network by connecting to the secondary router (linksys WRT160N V2) and turning off DHCP, and setting the IP address as the same as the primary router but with the last digit changed (BT= 192.168.1.254, linksys= 192.168.1.253). Didn't need to change anything on the BT router (bthub5). then I connected a LAN port from the linksys to a LAN port of the BT hub.
So now the Linksys gets it's internet via the ethernet cable- through the BT hub (the BThub gets internet through the DSL port in the back for your information). The internet from both routers is very fast.

In the linksys settings page, i've given it a new SSID and password. No need to change the wireless channel as the router with be placed 80m away in the other building (using a 100m cat5e ethernet cable!!!)

now back to my original problem, limiting the internet download speed of the linksys router so guests connected to it don't hog the bandwidth... On the BT hub I wanted to restrict the internet speed it gives out to the linksys router to about 5mbps. It is currently around 40mbps with a ping of 16ms using speedtest.net. However there are NO such settings within the BThub router page settings to limit bandwidth to the linksys router.
I can only:
1. block internet to the linksys router at specified hours of the day (don't actually want to BLOCK guests using internet!)
2. use port forwarding. however I believe this prioritises bandwidth. I want to restrict it.

any ideas of what I can do without flashing the BT router with firmware? will using a 100m cable help reduce the speed?
 
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Ralston18

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Teo,

Glad to hear it is all working sans limiting bandwidth.

I did do some poking around with regards to QoS and the BT Hub 5 (Home). Does not seem as if QoS is really available for the Home version but I did note one old reference regarding version and firmware. One spec sheet indicated that the BT Hub 5 Business supported QoS but to what extent was not clear.

BT may need to offer users more home router QoS features to stay competitive with other comparable routers and their respective features. Keep watching.....

And then, of course, with all currently working well it may be that there will be no problem with guests hogging the bandwidth. Or not enough of a problem to interfere with your work. Unlikely but objectively TBD I think.

With respect to the WRT160N I still believe you have some options there. For example take a look at "No acknowledgment" feature. Seems to me that that would/could slow things down on the user's end. (I do not have a WRT160 at hand to tinker with.) However, you might pre-load/configure your WRT160 with some of the more commonly used applications (internet games), websites (facebook, google, netflix, youtube), etc. just to provide some limitations. Take a look at some of the other QoS Categories and proceed as you deem best. Keep some note and add/remove/modify as necessary.

Nothing to lose with respect to doing what you can via the WRT160 and, best of all, you do not need to mess with the BT router. For now anyhow....






 
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teo113

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Thanks again Ralston, I really appreciate your responses!

Yes I will now turn to the Linksys router to play around with the settings on it.

I have a question though. Let's say the ethernet cable from the BT Hub runs all the way to the linksys router's LAN port 1. Is it possible to limit the traffic received on a particular LAN port of a router? LAN port 1 in this case.
So as I can't place a limit on data sent via the bt hub, I'm thinking the linksys router could limit data received via a particular LAN port...
 
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Ralston18

Ralston18

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Just happened to be in the forum....

As I read the WRT160 User Manual (page 23) the physical Ethernet Ports can be prioritized to "High, Medium (Recommended), Normal, or Low".

Commonly, the sense would be that that prioritization would apply to the "downstream" device plugged into that ethernet port. However, if that ethernet port happens to be serving "upstream" I am not sure that the WRT160 Router would know or, if so, care. All the router should do is limit the flow for that port and any others so prioritized.

And that limit being imposed either upstream, downstream, or both should do the required job I think. Maybe some speedtest runs before and after you establish the priority. Low priority should provide the greatest speed differences.

Easy to try and test. Will be interested to hear what happens. Thanks.

P.S. With respect to the 100m cable: Will not make any noticable difference in the speed if the cable is of good quality. A "poor quality" /low end Cat 3 cable could slow/choke things but would not be worth the associated aggrevation as that would make future troubleshooting or router reconfiguration difficult. Just find the concept a bit amusing...... :)

 
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teo113

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I have prioritised ethernet port 1 of the secondary router (linksys). I set it to 'Low'. the download speed has dropped from 37Mbps to 17Mbps, which is a start I guess. the Upload only went down from 9Mbps to 8Mbps...
this was tested on speedtest.net

Edit: NOPE. I did back to back tests, switching between LOW and MEDIUM (default) and the speeds were the same. I guess the internet in the area become slower since earlier this afternoon when I got the 37Mbps result.
 
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Ralston18

Ralston18

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Good to know.

However, the prioritization may only be applied if the router is seeing/sensing an overall traffic load on your network.

What happens if you load up the network with your devices doing bandwidth intensive things on the "BT side" while speed testing?

If there is no bandwidth competition then the ethernet port 1 prioritization is moot. Just trying to reason out possibilities.....
 
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