Amateur though I am, I've become the default manager for internet access in our large home. The hardware consists of a cable modem and older model WRT54G with updated firmware. All but my own PC (which connected via the local ethernet port on the router) are using wireless. This has worked quite well until the two college-age folks in the house started getting heavy into P2P (Limewire and Sharezaa). This has had a noticeable performance impact on net access, and I'd like to try to improve things.
I am not in a position to prohibit these kids from using P2P, and polite efforts to get them to limit the number of connections, and to postpone heavy transfers to off-hours has not worked for very long. I understand that various port blocking rules within the router are largely ineffective because the P2P clients use port-hopping, and can even use port 80 if notinh else works. I was wondering if a more sophisticated hardware solution might help us.
My first understanding is that the limited CPU power and RAM in an inexpensive router get overwhelmed by such a large number of connections. Would a more robust hardware (NAT router) be likely to help? If yes, and specific suggestions?
From what I gather, true hardware firewall appliances allow the use of rules that can limit the number of connections and the bandwidth allotted to each client IP address. This, to me, seems very attractive (although more expensive) and I was wondering if interposing a firewall between the cable modem and the router (or discarding the modem and using the firewall with an access point) would achieve the desired end. Any specific suggestions?