WISP Growing - Asking for opinions

[luke541]

Hi Guys,

I started my wisp about 2 1/2 years ago with 2 V2 AP's and a 50 pack of v2 wrap clients, and it has grown beyond where I had expected it to be today. I'm not sure what some consider a big wisp or small wisp, but I have grown to abut 480+ customers and while my network is fairly well under control, my biggest problem is the file sharing users. I would guess that 60% of my client base is 55 and older and it surpises me everyday how many of these clients are learning how to use bit torrent software which I do not block in any way and don't intend to. With the addition of about 2 to 3 customers per day its become a battle to keep 30 bit torrent users from taking up 30megs of my ds3. I'm not ready to add another ds3

My network is fully routed, all clients have public ip's and my current shaping is done at the V2 x86 gateway. Currently i'm using WAR1's and WAR2's client units and still have a few cb3 units also from when we first got started. My citywide coverage is proxim gear, but its getting replaced almost daily by WAR1 units. So all in all i'm about 100+ radio's short of being 100% star based. I'm excited! =)

I have a service policy that covers these issues "file sharing" but overall I don't want to deny these abilities. Can you really convince a house full of teenagers how to download one or two at a time rather than 10 up and down all at once? Maybe, but it only lasts a day or so. Even the adults....

So long story short i'm getting further into the need to find a better way of limiting such usage rather than having to consider blocking ports or having to make take other mesures. I know some are using l7 rules etc but i'm not sure if I should consider using routes like that to work on these issues or if I should consider a bandwidth managing device designed for that specific purpose. Or use a high power v2 or v3 x86 and shape ports and port ranges at the gateway? Any opinions from anyone wth a customer base near or larger than mine with these issues? And what you use or would be using to handle all the youtube, online tv, voip and file sharing thats becoming so common for so many subscribers these days.

Any opinions are appreciated. Some of the units I have been able to track down are pretty costly, but are they really worth it? Hopefully someone else can help guide me towards that potential answer.

Thanks everyone for any comments or opinions. Sorry for any rambling. I never knew i'd be working 20 hours a day. I wish I had a Mini-me so I could go on standby mode once in a while. :)

[lonnie]

I would consider setting up a special machine on your DS3 edge that you severely limit to maybe 2 mbps and then mark the p2p packets using layer7.

Once the packets are marked I would use our source routing to send those marked packets to the special machine. This will make things usable but slow.

[tog]

If it's not already policy to setup CBQ limiting rules for each client on your network, you may want to consider doing so at least for the clients that are beating the crap out of it with bittorrent and the like.

Nothing fancy, just a straight qshape rule to limit down/up traffic to/from the person's IP.

If you are already CBQ limiting, consider tightening the individual limit for those who are using bittorrent 24/7. Especially consider making CBQ rules with something like "fb" 300kbit for their upload speed.

This way they at least feel it when they pack their net connection full of junk.

[luke541]

I do use cbq on all my star clients, I only use the v2 gateway to shape public's that go to other devices that don't have cbq abilities.

With a 1.5 down account, a that falls back to about 768. 30x768 still ends up being a large number to deal with on the ds3 just for file sharing useage. Yes I can cut them back further, but then I eventually get a phone call and thats what i'd rather avoid.

Lonnie, are you suggesting Policy based routing to send specific ports to a differant gateway with harsher limits imposed? Or can you explain and or point me to what you mean by "our source routing".. Sorry, thats just not something i'm understanding real clear.

I also have a 4xt1 circuit that if I could route all the file sharing ports out to would probobly take care of me just fine. If I understand correctly,, this can be done? And if so is anyone doing it with good results?

Would shaping an entire port range with cbq on my gateway be a good way to cut some of it down? Say something like: shape tcp to pipe 100 from any 10000:650000 ?

[tog]

Do not shape the entire port range like that, it will cause problems for all.