What granularity do you need? Many managed switches can limit in multiples of 1Mbps. I set up a managed office space early last year that resells internet access to their tenants. Because they needed more granularity we went with a combination of a Cisco 2801 router and 3550 switch to get granularity below 1Mbps (actually in 8kbps chunks).
The property management company later decided to set the limits higher than originally spec'd (at 1Mbps per switch port), choosing to run monthly reports and bill for overages rather than limit the customers. We also VLANed all of the offices to isolate them using the 3550 and a 2801 router, with some access-lists defined to allow all tenants access to onsite servers providing DNS, SMTP, intranet, file serving, and printer spooling. With the 2801 remote VPN access was also provided to tenants. I don't remember if the 2960 series of switches has rate limiting, but if it does that might be a good way to save a bit of money, but I highly recommend the 2801 router. It was designed specifically for the combination of internet and VOIP services. Prices for the 2801 are reasonable...it's the 3550 that quickly gobbles up a budget, so see if the 2960 will do what you need. Don't forget to budget for the appropriate WIC for the 2801, though. You're probably looking at ~$4k for the equipment, so lock in as many tenants for as long as you can to cover your outlay. I don't know if you can do it any cheaper and have any protection from one or two customers sucking up all of the pipe or degrading VOIP service. Hope this helps, Darin. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave Doherty" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <Declude.JunkMail@declude.com> Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 9:41 PM Subject: [Declude.JunkMail] OT: Inexpensive rate limiting switch? Hi, all- I'll be providing VOIP and Internet service to five to ten other tenants in the building I will be moving into in a couple of months. I'm looking for a way to provide limited bandwidth to each port, preferably with some form of QOS or priority handling for the VOIP services. Does anybody know of an inexpensive way to provide this? These are one to three person companies for the most part, and big-bucks solutions are not in the picture. -Dave Doherty Skywaves, Inc. --- This E-mail came from the Declude.JunkMail mailing list. To unsubscribe, just send an E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], and type "unsubscribe Declude.JunkMail". The archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com. --- This E-mail came from the Declude.JunkMail mailing list. To unsubscribe, just send an E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], and type "unsubscribe Declude.JunkMail". The archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com.
