Choosing a service with the best packages is a big task. Especially when you have a big family but at the same time, you can’t spend too much. You remember how difficult that was when you had to move to a new location and wanted a connection. All that browsing, scrutinizing, and comparing plans like Spectrum Cable and Internet with Xfinity’s and others! And finally, getting the best. Well, at least that was what you thought at the time. But now you see that your bill is always exceeding the limit. And you end up wondering what’s causing this unwelcomed slow-down.
To start with, remember that your household is flooded with internet-based gadgets. Even kids own multiple game consoles, tablets, computers, and so on. And look at the gadget-collection of adults in your house. You would clearly understand what’s causing this bandwidth crisis. So, what could be the solution? You can’t really ensure that your kids are actually sleeping instead of streaming videos under their duvet. But you can do other things. And we are going to enlighten you about them.
The best option is to manage your internet use. And that you can do directly from your router. Here’s how…
How to Monitor and Restrict Router Traffic
There are different ways to monitor the traffic on your home network via a router. Thanks to technology! Here are some of those ways:
- You can give more priority to certain devices, which are more important to your family.
- You can block the traffic on your router on certain days or at certain times.
- You can figure out which devices are eating up all your bandwidth.
Therefore, installing a monitoring or tracking program on your router is way more harmless than the delicate struggle of installing software of parental controls on your children’s devices. Many parents who know the drill would agree.
Your Router’s Service Settings
The quality of your service settings is important. You can prioritize the devices in your home on the basis of the importance. We would suggest that you should give the highest priority to the entertainment system of your living room. You can adjust the router’s settings and prioritize the connected devices. The location of the menu options and quality of settings menu vary from router to router.
Typically, it is good to assign “medium priority” to devices like smartphones and tablets. So that even if they require a lot of bandwidth, they wouldn’t drain all of it. And only the device with the top priority (home entertainment system in this case) can have plenty of it.
Use a Schedule to Block Your Internet Use
Do your kids tend to ignore you when you try to tell them to shut down their devices on school nights? Do they sneak their gadgets in their bedrooms and keep surfing the internet? Well, if they are not listening to you, there are other things which you can do.
For instance, you can use internet blocking options. Many routers allow you to use the option of blocking internet use. You can do it from your network and you can do it on a set schedule. So, here is what you should do. On school nights, simply block the internet’s access to your kids’ devices after 9 p.m.
Create a Restriction Schedule the Internet Time
Creating an internet rule or policy is a good idea. If you hail from a family of Apple devices, it is easy to add all the MAC addresses to follow this policy. After adding the device addresses, you can simply define the new restrictions, which you want to apply to those devices. You might have to adjust the timings according to your router.
Logging and Tracking the Router’s Traffic
You don’t need to grab every device in the house and install surveillance equipment on it. If you want to check what’s eating up your bandwidth, you need to know your router’s features better. Most routers allow you to log internet usage. And you can do that for both, outgoing and incoming traffic. Just check the router menu and you will find these settings in the administrator’s section. The outgoing log will give you a clear picture of what your family and kids are doing online. You will conveniently find the IP addresses, which are linked to popular sites like Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, and others.
So instead of calling Charter Internet Support and asking where your bandwidth is disappearing, this would be a better move.