Can a wireless wifi router be configured to not allow the streaming of music or downloading DVD movies?

Question

I use wifi at a lot different places, most of the time I can listen to internet radio at these locations, but one panera bread! I think its a good idea and I would like to use this setup at home with my future setup, which I intend to share with my neighbors,but with the current proposal of bandwith restrictions, Iam not going to pay for everybody's enternment!

Answer 1

I don't know that there's a way to completely stop streaming of video and music, but you can minimize the effects. The video is usually streamed over the same ports that the web browswer uses. I'm not aware of a home router that's smart enough to inspect the packets to determine the content. That is, it's hard to distinguish a web page from a picture from a youtube video when just looking at data coming in over a port.

That said, most home routers now have some way to set up quality of service (QoS). That is, you can increase or decrease the priority of traffic going to certain ports (or wireless and wired ports), to certain MAC addresses, and for some applications (like AIM which uses a different port than a web browser). Every device that connects to your network will have a unique MAC address (in theory at least). If you can determine the abusing MAC address, you can reduce its priority to low. You can give applications like AIM high priority. You can also give priority to VoIP devices like those used by Skype.

If you want to do heavy duty "traffic shaping," the term for what you are describing, you'll need a more expensive router or a Linux box set up as your router. (I have the latter, but it's not for everyone.) The routers I've seen recommended are the Cisco 800 and 1800 series. These are not cheap, however.

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Meant to mention this. Check the Terms of Service for your ISP. It may explicitly forbid you from sharing your Internet service. Most residential contracts do. The ISP would like to get money from your neighbors as well. Also, if your neighbors start downloading illegal bit torrents and video, it may be traced to you (or at least the IP address you were using). In the US, your ISP will generally not hesitate to cancel your service once they get the letter from the RIAA.

Answer 2

technology-

http://thepn.org/