Internet Cable Speed

How Would I Slow-down Cable Internet Speed on Home Network?

I'm thinking of a temporary switch from FastAcess DSL Lite to Time-Warner Cable Internet. Cable will be faster, so I want to introduce a "choke" so that the user community (my family) will not see a speed increase. This will allow me to freely switch back to the slower/cheaper DSL (AT&T "term contract plans" are not available to existing customers so I need to leave for 60 days). I will get a "Free Wireless Router" from twcable, but if the model is important, maybe you can look that up too for me, or maybe tell me what model of router has the ability to limit bandwidth. Optimally, I would want to limit bandwidth by IP address, but if you can find a solution that treats all IP's the same, that's okay. A cheap hardware solution is best, but I can hang a PC with some kind of proxy server, if a software solution is best (I'd even like a free software solution better than a $50+ hardware solution). Thanks. If you think a software firewall/proxy server would work, help me with the configuration of the speed. Neither the admin manuals from Smoothwall nor IPCop say anything about setting max bandwidth (only max file size, which is not the problem).

Public Comments

1. Sounds and looks complex - next time use paragraphs. - a 3rd party modified pre version 5 Linksys wrt54g router of with a throw away pc you could make an adanced smoothwall router http://www.smoothwall.org/ IPcop is its more advanced predessor http://ipcop.org/
2. There isn't really a port configuration function on most cheap switches/routers, so that route is out. How about setting up some kind of multicast session that will flood your network with traffic, that will choke your bandwith. Or you could maybe setup a BearShare or Kazaa supernode with a lot of porn to share..maybe give yourself a good ICQ zombie worm? THAT will kill your network. My point it this; asking us how you can rip off a company and help you cover your tracks with your family is really pathetic.