Prevent network bottlenecks and improve your internet connection
How can you ensure everyone enjoys a reasonable level of network performance, prevent network bottlenecks, without slowing down other people’s connections? Read on to find out.
Think of your internet connection as a highway, with each person using it travelling in a vehicle whose type and size is determined by the amount of bandwidth they consume. Light users, occasionally checking email or browsing web pages, travel in small cars or on motorcycles while those with heavier demands, such as uploading or downloading large amounts of data, travel in lorries. The greater the number of people using the highway, the more likely congestion is to occur, particularly if everyone is travelling in HGVs. To reduce the demand on this highway, you can do various things: you can, for example, introduce bans on which vehicles can travel on the highway, forcing users to switch to vehicles appropriate for their work-related needs. Create a traffic blacklist You can also introduce limits – fixed or variable depending on the time of day or specific circumstances – to force larger vehicles to travel in just one or two lanes, ensuring sufficient space is left for other users. Banning certain types of traffic is only a practical solution when you’re blocking non-essential services. Applying a blanket ban on using the internet for personal use may be counterproductive, but you can prohibit specific people from selected activities, such as streaming video. This is done through your router’s firewall – taking the ASUS BRT-AC828 as an example, you’d navigate to the Firewall > Network Services Filter tab where you can create blacklists to ban certain types of internet traffic or whitelists to permit only selected traffic. These can even be set to apply at certain times only – allowing you to relax the policy out of office hours, or during lunch. Set QoS bandwidth limits Outright bans may not be a practical solution. You may, for example, only suffer from bandwidth issues on selected occasions or at certain times of the day. The solution lies in applying so-called Quality of Service (QoS) controls, which can be used to introduce limits to ensure that no single user can consume all available bandwidth.
You’ll find these controls on your ASUS router under ‘General > Adaptive QoS’. Start by visiting the Bandwidth Monitor section to monitor device usage. Here, you’ll be able to identify bottlenecks, either persistently offending devices, certain types of traffic, or even specific times when issues arise. Armed with this information, you’ll be able to apply hard limits for each user using the Bandwidth Limiter tool. Limits can be applied universally, to a range of IP addresses or to individual devices based on their MAC addresses. Once you’ve selected your target, just enter fixed download and upload limits. Get your priorities right This approach is rather inflexible, but ASUS routers allow you to apply softer limits instead. This is done by assigning different levels of priority to each networked device, as well as different types of internet usage (such as web browsing, FTP, streaming or VoIP). Five priority levels are available, ranging from Highest to Lowest, and they can be configured to only come into play when more important users or activities (such as that video conference meeting) need the bandwidth. To fine-tune these settings, start by clicking the ‘Enable Smart QoS’ switch. Two types of QoS are available: adaptive and traditional, the latter providing more advanced controls for those who need them. From here you can set different bandwidth limits for each level of priority, including a minimum amount of reserved bandwidth so lower priority users and internet services can still function, albeit at much slower speeds. By following these tips, you can ensure that everyone receives a solid level of network performance without slowing down other people’s connections and disrupting business productivity.
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