MSN Webcam - bandwidth reduction

One of the users of our small LAN is using MSN Messenger with webcam
quite a lot, and it is having quite an adverse affect on the rest of
the LAN's WAN access. Web pages load noticably more slowly, and game
pings increase.

Thus far, the only solution has been to ask the user to turn off the
cam, or only use it when no-one is likely to be affected, however, is
there a more 'managed' solution such as restricting the amount of
bandwidth it can use?

We have both a wired and wireless LAN (a Draytek 2600 serves the wired
part and is connected to the WAN, whereas a Netgear DG834 is being used
as an access point duly connected the Draytek) The OS is a mix of XP
Pro and Home.

The webcam is being utlised via the Netgear access point.

I'd like to restrict (slow down if needed) the web cam usage, so the
rest of us can do more mundane things at a reasonable speed.

Or does the slow-down indicate we have a LAN issue if web cams
shouldn't have this kind of affect?

TIA

tx2 wrote:

>Or does the slow-down indicate we have a LAN issue if web cams
>shouldn't have this kind of affect?

What speed is the traffic to/from the webcam PC ? Given the webcam
user will be *transmitting* that seems less likely to be causing all
other users to be affected, so it might be the speed of the person(s)
that are in contact with the webcam user.

[I don't know if it is possible for multiple viewing to be achieved
on that service, but it may be, in which case the user could view
2 or 3 remote webcam users, and their upload speed might well be
higher if they are on cable/LLU/abroad... saturating your inbound
link... certainly I've filled the inbound side using webcam services
while also viewing films etc (on multiple PCs)]

Some routers show the traffic to individual IP addresses on the LAN
so you may get a measure of inbound / outbound over a 10 or 15 min.
period and work out the speed of traffic if yours offers that, or
via the firewall (I use Kerio, which allows remote viewing of the
stats, so can see traffic to/from individual applications, even on
a PC 100 miles away), or using other monitoring software to check
the traffic on the webcam PC.

Even XP's network monitoring will do it, but it may be easier to
keep a check without interrupting the user, via other methods!

Never touched a Draytek, no idea what they can/cannot offer in the
way of IP-specific information.

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
anon <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>tx2 wrote:
>
> >Or does the slow-down indicate we have a LAN issue if web cams
> >shouldn't have this kind of affect?
>
>What speed is the traffic to/from the webcam PC ? Given the webcam
>user will be *transmitting* that seems less likely to be causing all
>other users to be affected, so it might be the speed of the person(s)
>that are in contact with the webcam user.

Heavy outgoing traffic on an ADSL line can severely affect incoming
traffic - the the extent that incoming traffic can be slowed down to
about the same as the outgoing traffic is, and ping times can increase
dramatically.

What you need to do is rate-limit the speed of the outgoing data. See
if the software you are using with the web-cam lets you do this. If your
outgoing line is 256Kbps (the usual unless you have ADSL-MAX) then limit
it to 200Kbps. (I've never used MSN WebCam though, so don't know)

I think Drayteks do have QoS (Quality of Service) and you might be able to
fiddle with the settings on the router itself - again, to limit outgoing
traffic to 200Kbps - or even better, just limit it to outgoing traffic
from the IP address of the PC with the webcam, but it's probably easier
to start at the webcam PC and see if that has any settings first.

Gordon

Gordon Henderson wrote:

> I think Drayteks do have QoS (Quality of Service) and you might be
> able to fiddle with the settings on the router itself

A Draytek may even do something daft - assume the traffic (if UDP)
is VoIP and give it higher priority!

anon wrote:
> tx2 wrote:
>
>> Or does the slow-down indicate we have a LAN issue if web cams
>> shouldn't have this kind of affect?
>
> What speed is the traffic to/from the webcam PC ? Given the webcam
> user will be *transmitting* that seems less likely to be causing all
> other users to be affected, so it might be the speed of the
> person(s) that are in contact with the webcam user.
>
> [I don't know if it is possible for multiple viewing to be achieved
> on that service, but it may be, in which case the user could view
> 2 or 3 remote webcam users, and their upload speed might well be
> higher if they are on cable/LLU/abroad... saturating your inbound
> link... certainly I've filled the inbound side using webcam
> services while also viewing films etc (on multiple PCs)]

MSN is mercifuly a one to one contact, at the present moment, when
you are using a web cam